A new school in a remote northern Ontario indigenous community has been closed for more than a month after a malfunctioning sprinkler system flooded the building.
Band council members in Attawapiskat First Nation say the break inside the $30 million elementary school, the only one available to serve the roughly 400 students in the community, leaving much of one floor under water.
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Chief Executive Wayne Turner says there have been no classes since the sprinkler malfunctioned on Jan. 7.
READ MORE: Attawapiskat chief: Trudeau government ‘is listening,’ but new funding isn’t enough
He says repairs to the building are underway and hopes students will be back in the school in a matter of weeks.
The triumphant opening of the school in 2014 put an end to a 14-year period during which the community had to teach its youngest students in portable classrooms due to a lack of proper facilities.
Turner says the latest setback, one of many for a community that’s been grappling with a youth suicide crisis and a chronic housing shortage, is very disheartening.
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