Duxbury preschool floods just as it embraces new ‘River Branch’ name
July 17, 2023 | By Lisa ScagliottiThe rear side of the school and apartment building is lower than the Main Street side. The day after the flood, river water still reaches the building significantly damaging two of the three ground-level apartments. Courtesy photo
No one could have predicted the timing. It was months ago when the staff at The Children’s Early Learning Space childcare and preschool in Duxbury began their brainstorming to rename their center.
For the past couple of years, the nonprofit has undergone a bit of a transformation having made the decision to purchase the former Duxbury Elementary School building that it has rented space in for two decades. “We became new owners of the building in November 2021,” said Board of Directors Chair Chelsea Bardot Lewis.
The rebranding exercise then began with staff and families involved in choosing a new name, a new logo to present as the organization’s identity going forward and a new website.
The new name? River Branch Community School.
“This was our ‘go-live’ week with the new name,” Bardot Lewis said.
The website with the new name went live last week just as its namesake Winooski River decided to spill over its banks sending floodwaters literally right up to the building’s back door. The child care and preschool fortunately occupy the second level of the building that’s at the street level on the front side of the former schoolhouse. Around the back at the ground level are entrances to three of the building’s five apartments. (The others are upstairs above the school.)
Two of the apartments by last Monday night were flooded.
“The floodwater came into the field and completely inundated it to the building,” Bardot Lewis said. “The preschool play equipment was underwater.”
For the rest of the week, River Branch was closed as water slowly receded from the play yard used by its preschoolers. A separate playground used by the center’s toddlers sits higher up alongside Main Street and was untouched by the floodwaters.
Today, the school reopens – in two places.
Infants and toddlers return to the Duxbury space. Preschoolers, however, will get to see what it’s like to go to Brookside Primary School in Waterbury a little early in their school careers.
Given that it’s summer break, the school’s space was available, Bardot Lewis explained, and the principals said the preschool was welcome to operate there through Aug. 21. The River Branch preschool is actually part of the public school system as a preschool program within the Harwood Unified Union School District through Act 166.
Meanwhile, the condition of the playground – covered in an inch of sticky, silty river mud – makes it unacceptable for the preschoolers to play there and state childcare regulations require programs to provide adequate outdoor space, Bardot Lewis explained.
In addition, they need to be sure the building’s wastewater system is functioning properly after being flooded. “One of the biggest issues is we can’t use the septic system until the water recedes,” she added.
The primary school in Waterbury, which wasn’t affected by last week’s flooding, is a perfect alternative for the preschoolers for now. Bardot Lewis called it “a godsend.”
Co-Principal Chris Neville takes the events in stride. Reached late last week, he was jugging arrangements for multiple uses of the school facility as a result of the flood: the building was opened several nights as a temporary shelter, community members are using the kitchen for preparing food for cleanup volunteers, and the middle school students in the town recreation camp will be meeting there because their space at Wesley United Methodist Church is flooded.
“It’s all OK,” Neville said. “That’s what we’re here for. We’re happy to help out.”
The childcare center will get portable toilets for staff and the unaffected tenants. And Bardot Lewis noted that the youngest children returning this week are largely still in diapers.
Still, the clock is ticking and River Branch staff and board members know they have a relatively short window to get their outdoor space cleaned up for the preschoolers to return.
Fortunately for the impacted apartments, Bardot Lewis explained, the center was required to have flood insurance as part of its financing when it purchased the building. That now will be a process to sort out.
The view out one of the building’s ground-floor apartments. Courtesy photo
Each of the affected apartments had a single tenant, Bardot Lewis said, including one of the center’s preschool teachers. They were able to move out into temporary housing arrangements, she said, and their units have been emptied and even drywall that was impacted has been removed already.
Staff and board members are looking for contractors now to not just repair the damage, but to see what improvements can be made to avoid future flood damage. “One goal is to build back to be more resilient in the future,” Bardot Lewis said.
The school created an online fundraising page last week with a goal of $50,000 to help with the flood-recovery costs. As of Monday, July 17, it had already collected $7,100 from 42 donors.
The fundraising page makes the building-back-better point as well: “Unfortunately it seems we need to assume that the river will reach these levels more frequently. Your donations allow us to imagine not just repairing, but preparing for the future.”
Inside one of the flooded apartments. Courtesy photo
Having flood insurance does not mean that the cleanup and even repairs and mitigation steps will be paid for. Insurance comes with a deductible, Bardot Lewis noted, and it does not cover impacts to anything outside of the building itself. Some of the equipment and toys that were outside in the play area and became submerged in the floodwaters are not usable. The grounds themselves will need work and new material.
“Our outdoor space will require significant remediation before it is safe to use,” explains the fundraising page.
One of the challenges now, Bardot Lewis said, is to determine the criteria to know when the field is OK for the children to return there to play. School leaders are looking to state child care and environmental officials as well as the Vermont Department of Health. “What’s the guidance?” is the question to answer and how to meet it are the immediate challenges, she said.
Work toward that goal has already begun. A work party over the weekend started cleanup and volunteers are on site today sanitizing the apartments, Bardot Lewis said. The school has contracted with Marty Wells Land Service for playground remediation, she said. “All structures were power-washed this weekend, and all of the contaminated sand, woodchips, etc, will be removed and disposed of so that children can safely return as soon as possible.”
River Branch Community School – formerly The Children's Early Learning Space – usually serves approximately 40 families, Bardot Lewis said. Licensed to care for 45 children per day, its preschool currently has 17 students and the younger groups are 8 infants and 9 toddlers. A total of eight staff members work at the center, Bardot Lewis said. The center is the second-largest state-licensed childcare and preschool in the community, the other being Hunger Mountain Children’s Center in Waterbury with capacity for up to 60 children per day.
The school’s new logo was just rolled out on its new website and elsewhere. Courtesy image
Prior to River Branch occupying the former Duxbury school building in 2003, the program was located on Elm Street in Waterbury for several years. It opened there after becoming independent from Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. where it began in 1989 as the company’s childcare center for employees at its Waterbury ice cream factory.
The new online fundraising page points out the irony of the school’s renaming and the timing of last week’s flood: “We didn't know how apt it would be to rename ourselves after our proximity to the mighty Winooski.”