Hammering, banging, loud noises, and leaks have been bothering students at Cape Coral High School since the start of the 2024-2025 school year.
Cape High’s roof is under reconstruction because of damage. One of the causes for this damage was hurricane Ian in 2022, two years ago, which caused great damage to Cape Coral and Florida in general. The other factor is that the school is very old, it already needed a new roof prior to this.
Assistant Principal Mathew Toadvine has explained that the roof is in fact the cause of the leaks in the school, bringing disruptions in academic time for students. Multiple teachers had to relocate their classrooms to different rooms because of leaks and the loud construction noises.
The reason why the roof needs to be reconstructed is simple, but predictable. “The hurricane and also it’s an old roof because this is an old school,” said Toadvine.
Hurricane Ian destroyed part of the roof, the strong gushes and flying debris also caused part of the damage. The school being old and not having a newer roof didn’t help at all. With a weak roof, and a strong hurricane, the probability of it needing to be fixed because of the damage the hurricane did is high.
Classrooms weren’t the only places affected. The gym also had its problems with the construction. Coach Dale More and the other coaches have said that they had trouble with attendance, changing in the locker rooms, having to move to different areas, and there were smells from the construction in the gym. Those smells can also be hazardous to the students because of the use of chemicals that are used to help fix the roof, which can affect a student’s health.
Ninth grader Zaira Tavarez explained how the construction was disturbing her class, often making people scared when something fell and made a loud noise. “In Mr. James Reimer’s class you can see the crane lifting things through the windows,” said Tavarez. “Which gets distracting as well as when things drop onto the roof it creates a loud noise and it shocks people and makes a disturbance.”
Even downstairs, the construction is still loud. Everyday students are hearing the sounds of materials falling, hammers hitting the roof, and more. It isn’t a nice learning environment to have echoing noises coming from the roof every once in a while while focus is needed.
If a few days of those noises and moving around are already bad, imagine it for the whole school year. “It is expected to take another 10 months so it’ll take the whole school year,” Toadvine said.
The construction will go throughout the year, so there still will be interruptions and moving classrooms every once in a while. But luckily, the roof will finally get fixed and next year hopefully there won’t be as many interruptions as this construction caused.
