Two Glendale elementary schools will be closed for up to five weeks starting Monday for repairs. The decision was taken after the district found structural deficiencies in the schools' buildings that could pose safety risks for students and teachers.

According to the Glendale Elementary School District, the move is precautionary and will displace about 1,450 students and 150 district employees at Challenger Middle School and Landmark School.

A spokesperson for the Glendale Elementary School District, Jim Cummings, said that, “In every building on both campuses, there are varying degrees of decay to the walls. How much decay depends on where you look. But, the uncertainty here is that we don't know how much damage because there are areas that we simply cannot see."

"What we are concerned about is a severe weather event." "Whether it be a microburst, a high-wind event, maybe like a hurricane that swept in something like that would actually sweep the wall from the bottom, not from the top. It's basically like having your feet swept out from under you that are what we’re concerned about" Cummings said.

Joe Quintana, superintendent of the Glendale Elementary district, said in a news release, that, “Knowing what we now know, we could not ethically or morally allow students back on to those campuses until the repairs are made.”

“Our first priority must be the safety of our students and staff, and this is why we took this step.”

Two schools would operate under "split schedules" under the second option.  Challenger and Landmark students would attend classes at the host schools in the morning or afternoon while students from the host schools would attend for the other half of the day.

"Is it a long-term solution? No, given the age of the buildings," Cummings said. "Somewhere down the line we’re going to have to consider building new schools. That’s problematic for us because we don’t have a great amount of bonding capacity.”

"All those things are down the road and our first considerations are making sure the buildings are safe for students and staff to use."

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Nandini