Knowledge of structural problems at Jenkins Middle School in Colorado Springs School District 11 began around a decade after the school was built. Now, it sits empty, waiting for repairs to its foundation that could have a high price tag.
The district has released a final report on the structural and fire protection concerns that resulted in the January closure of Jenkins Middle School. The report confirmed the preliminary findings, released last month, which said the decline was a result of soil settlement related to an increase in moisture content from the time the building was built until the recent inspection.
According to the Colorado Springs Fire Department, the agency and the district have been "closely monitoring the building structure and fire protection systems … for the past few years."
The statement from CSFD at the time the school shut down comes after years of citations during routine annual inspections, according to CSFD Fire Marshall Brett Lacey.
“Back in 2013, my inspectors began to notice degradation of those fire protection features and they would write them up,” Lacey said, “and [the district] would come back in and correct them with fire rated materials or caulking or trying to shore up those passive features.”
When Jenkins Middle School was built in 1999, building codes didn’t require the installation of active fire suppression systems, such as a sprinkler system. And though there are some sprinklers in the cafeteria, the rest of the school uses passive fire protections, specifically fire barriers.
The recently released final report covering a geotechnical inspection found parts of the foundation of the building had shifted up to 5.5 inches in some cases, causing fire barriers to no longer stay flush with their frames, rendering them ineffective.
“If you picture a door and a door fits within a door frame, as the structure begins to move, that can begin to warp the frame. Which then, the door may not fit appropriately,” said Colorado Springs Fire Marshal Brett Lacey.
The recently released report confirms that assessment, saying, in part, “Excessive door-to-frame or door-to-floor gaps were identified at the top, sides, and bottoms of fire-rated doors. Excessive gaps are also identified around the frame. Many doors have been cut or otherwise modified to fit door frames. Some doors did not latch.”
The district acknowledges that it’s been working with the fire department for some time on these issues.
”We have been working with the fire department for many years on mitigating those concerns, that as structural issues with the building came up,” said Jessica Wise, executive director of engagement for District 11.
At a special D11 board meeting in early February, Superintendent Michael Gaal said, "The challenges at Jenkins Middle School are longstanding. They are the responsibility of the Board of Education and the superintendent. And as that superintendent," Gaal said, "I do hold myself wholly accountable for the situation that we are in."
Gaal said they started soil studies at Jenkins Middle School in 2009, ten years after the school was built. It's unclear if any similar studies were conducted at the time of permitting the construction. In 1999 the state was responsible for permitting and KRCC has been unable to track down those records.
The most recent structural analysis took place in 2022, according to Gaal, at which time inspectors found no safety concerns from a structural point of view, "but there were certainly cosmetic concerns and challenges to be addressed in the long term, by the school district, due to the settling of that building."
Gaal said they'd planned on making repairs in the summer of 2027, but the most recent annual fire inspection left them with no choice but to close the school.
"The fire department's inspection this (school) year revealed that they had long-term concerns with the ways that the building has mitigated that risk," Gaal said. "Simplest explanation is a door is a rectangle and as that frame has started to resettle, those doors have started to look slightly more like parallelograms," adding that while that may not be visible, cracks in the wall are easy to see.
That may explain why Jenkins Middle School was not highly prioritized in a 2021 failed bond proposal. Gaal said the dollars had already been budgeted for 2027 to make more lasting repairs.
In a conversation with KRCC, Jessica Wise with the district reiterated they didn’t see the need for a faster timeline. “We have been doing structural analysis of the building and monitoring, and had planned to fix the structural problems in the summer of 2027,” she said, adding that they had made recommended patches from the fire department after each inspection.
”We were under the impression that everything was safe enough to prioritize the health and safety of our students and staff and families. We did not think we wanted a sooner timeline than that to fix the building.”
"And now in partnership with the Colorado Springs Fire Department and the state of Colorado,” Gaal said at the board meeting in February, “we are committed to actually rectifying the fundamental issue with that building, which is the settling of the seventh and eight grade wing, to ensure not only that our building passes fire code, but that it's safe for more than the next 25 to 50 years."
Just what those repairs will entail isn't entirely clear yet.
The final report after the geotechnical inspection recommends several areas of the school building undergo repairs or be fully removed and replaced. That includes:
- The Gym
- Seventh Grade Wing
- Eighth Grade Wing
It’s not a simple solution, and could include foundation replacement or injections of grout or foam to help stabilize foundations. According to the report, some areas of the building pose more risk than others, and further studies are likely. Engineers recommend regular inspections if the district doesn’t move forward with full section replacements.
“It is the highest priority of the superintendent to put together a comprehensive one-time solution for the Jenkins community,” said Wise. “We’re not looking at just piecemeal in this or doing anything partially.”
The total amount needed for repairs is not yet known, but the board allocated $750,000 for the first design phase of the project.
In the meantime, 6th graders are set to return to the school in the fall, while the 7th and 8th graders continue to commute to other schools.
The district anticipated releasing additional information on its timeline and projected costs before spring break, which is currently taking place. Regular classes resume March 31.
The next Board of Education meeting is on Wednesday, April 2.
