No heat forces Finley Elementary to close Friday

Finley Elementary School will be closed Friday to fix a pipe that shut down heat to part of the school on Thursday.

District officials said employees discovered the problem at 7 a.m. Thursday when they arrived to find no heat in seven classrooms, said Assistant Superintendent Bryan Long.

And it happened on the coldest day of the winter. The low at the Pasco airport Thursday morning was minus 1 degree.

School leaders brought kids in to other heated parts of the building on Thursday and put space heaters throughout the school. About 360 children attend the school east of Kennewick.

Maintenance crews found an underground pipe is leaking hot water before it reaches the school, Long said. Crews worked through the day but classes were canceled Friday because the repair requires all the heat to be shut off.

An after-school family learning fair and the kindergarten open house were canceled Thursday evening.

The elementary school’s heating system was replaced as part of work paid for by a $10 million 2017 bond. It’s unclear whether the pipe that broke was part of that work, said school officials.

This story was originally published February 7, 2019 at 12:42 PM.