After spring break, students and teachers discovered that MPR2, the choir room used by 524 Middle and High school students, had flooded. The flood upended the choir classes, causing disruptions across the music department. Immediately following the flood, choir classes took place in the School Center and in rooms in bottom yellow before finding a more suitable, temporary home in the Community Art Building’s gallery. The classes will be held there until May 24, when the AP Art Exhibit will be put up in that space.
Facilities Manager Kevin Moffat said the flood was caused by a burst in a water filter by the boys’ bathroom on Level 1 in the Lower School. The water then seeped down through the wall and into the corridor where MPR2 is located, filling the area with water. The scene was discovered by security late on April 21, though it is uncertain when the burst actually occurred.
Following the discovery, maintenance re-cleaned, extracted the water, shampooed and deodorized the area. The carpets in MPR2 have been ripped up in response to the flooding, and plans are underway to put new carpet down. “We’re now waiting to see when the new carpet can get here and then what are the opportunities for us to lay the carpet between now and the end of school,” Moffat said.
Moffat stressed that the situation is still new and that the facilities and maintenance team are waiting to see what they uncover.
It’s overall positively affected our class time because we’ve been moved to places that make the music sound better.
— Eli Anderson ('22)
Although reparations for MPR2 are underway, it’s unclear when students will be able to use the space again.
For Choir Teacher Lisa Ross, moving from MPR2 to the Art Building has meant “a lot of fast moving” of folders, pianos and chairs.
Additionally, the choir has benefited slightly from the change of the classroom, because Ross feel that students can actually hear each other better in the art building than in MPR2. “MPR2 is sort of a dungeon and there [are] no windows,” Ross said. “The windows impact the choirs as well. There’s a lot more energy, you can actually see daylight, which impacts moods.”
However, MPR2 has certain factors which are beneficial for practicing choir pieces such as sound-absorbing curtains that line the walls.
Ross said that carpets were added to the gallery to help absorb some of the background noise from the choir and limit the noise for surrounding classrooms.
The change has been beneficial for tenor singer Eli Anderson (‘22). “It’s overall positively affected our class time because we’ve been moved to places that make the music sound better,” he said.
