District 11 superintendent admits failures in communications of Jenkins Middle School closure

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - Following the news that Jenkins Middle School will temporarily close due to safety issues this week, D11 Superintendent Michael Gaal admitted to failures in communicating to staff about the situation.

In a district board meeting on Wednesday, Gaal said, "As your superintendent, I am ultimately responsible and the timeliness of some of our communications on Monday and Tuesday did not meet the needs of our community as a whole. I take responsibility for that. News breaks sometimes faster than we send things out and sometimes we send things out in the wrong order."

This comes after the district sent a message to families, before alerting all staff, of Jenkins Middle School being served a mandatory closure date of January 17th.

One item on Wednesday night's board meeting agenda was a budget transfer of over $2 million to a new technology school that's in the works.

That transfer has been put on hold, but community members still voiced their frustration about new schools being planned, as Jenkins Middle School cracks apart.

Community members told the board, "Allocating $2.5 million while our current schools are grappling with urgent needs is simply not the right priority...You continue to defer maintenance from the building and bury your heads in the sand."

D11 Superintendent Michael Gaal said, "It is unfortunate for our families that it has taken us and our staff and our students that it has taken us this long to get to the place where we absolutely committed to solving the long-term problems that have been presented at Jenkins."

Long-term problems such as cracks in the walls and doors disconnected from frames; one fire inspector found that many of the school's extinguishers were locked away.

This all prompted the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control to call for the closure; effective January 17th.

As for the proposed $18 million dollars needed to repair Jenkins Middle School, Gaal says $10 million was already set aside and the district does have $20 million in capital reserves, "Those dollars have already been budgeted for 2027 in our capital budget, we will be moving them forward as we await the assessments."

Superintendent Gaal says that at tomorrow's meeting at Doherty High School, administrators will be better equipped to answer questions from parents and students; as smaller details about the closure are hammered out.

That meeting will take place at 6 p.m.