A water leak threw a wrench into Wednesday morning at Haverhill High School, pushing back the start of classes by two hours and forcing students already riding the bus to be dropped off somewhere else entirely. Officials said the disruption was limited to the high school, leaving the rest of the district on its normal schedule.
Two-Hour Delay, Buses Sent Elsewhere
Haverhill Public Schools announced in a Facebook post that Haverhill High School would operate on a two-hour delay because of the leak, according to Boston 25 News. Students who were already en route by bus when the announcement went out were redirected to Consentino Middle School rather than the high school, as reported by WCVB. The district confirmed that the delay applied only to the high school, with no mention of other schools being affected, per Boston 25 News.
As of Wednesday morning, the cause of the leak had not been determined. The same WCVB report noted plainly that the cause of the leak remains under investigation, leaving open questions about what exactly went wrong and where. NBC Boston was among the outlets covering the delayed opening as news broke Wednesday.
District Asks for Patience Amid Limited Details
Haverhill Public Schools kept its public messaging brief, telling families only that more information would come once it was available. “We will provide further updates as soon as more information becomes available,” the district said in its statement, adding, “Thank you for your patience and understanding,” according to Boston 25 News. No further details on the scope of the leak or a timeline for resolving it had been released as of Wednesday morning.
This is not the first time plumbing trouble has disrupted the school day at Haverhill High. In an earlier, separate incident, classes were canceled after burst pipes in several heating and ventilation units flooded classrooms, hallways and the cafeteria, according to the Haverhill Gazette. At the time, the school's principal attributed that flooding to the building's boilers shutting down on their own overnight. A separate report from WHAV traced that earlier episode to a weekend power outage and a failed reboot of the building's management system, which kept a boiler from refiring once power returned. Those past incidents are unrelated to Wednesday's leak, and nothing in current reporting ties the two together.
Water-related disruptions to school openings have cropped up elsewhere in Massachusetts recently, too. A report from the Daily Hampshire Gazette detailed how asbestos and water damage factored into a delayed opening at Amherst Regional Middle School last month. For Haverhill families, though, the immediate concern remains simpler: whether Wednesday's two-hour delay turns into something longer, and when the district will share more about what caused the leak in the first place.
