Several Paradise Valley Unified School District campuses sustained damage during heavy rain Sept. 16, including a significant leak in a music classroom, district officials said during the Sept. 17 governing board meeting.
Governing board member Dr. Amanda Lim said the storm arrived around dismissal time at many schools, resulting in difficult student pickups as well as problems at a handful of district campuses.
“I heard about some very dramatic pickups because most of the big rain started right about the time a lot of our schools were getting out,” Lim said.
Some problems began before students left for the day.
“I heard about a very dramatic moment in one of our music classrooms where there was a very big leak,” Lim said.
She said the number of incidents across the district appeared limited and credited the district's ongoing roof maintenance program. Facilities employees were assessing the affected campuses to determine what repairs would be needed.
The storm damage came as PVSchools continues a significant program of roofing and other facility improvements across its campuses.
During a facilities presentation later in the meeting, Dr. Drew Davis, the district's director of Bond and Construction, said PVSchools had 14 roofing projects at 14 sites as part of its recent construction work.
“Only one caught us right in the middle of construction,” Davis said.
The district's roofing work included resurfacing flat portions of elementary schools built in the 1990s, repairing and sealing metal roofs and installing new roof coatings at Shadow Mountain High School and Fireside Elementary School to address water intrusion.
It was not clear from the meeting whether the roof that was under construction was at the same campus where the music classroom leak occurred.
Lim said preventative roof maintenance helped limit the number of problems during the storm.
“The nice part is it was probably a handful of incidents that happened across our district because Dr. Davis has been very good about preventative maintenance on our roofs,” Lim said.
She also thanked teachers and custodians who dealt with problems at affected schools and facilities employees who were determining what work would be necessary.
The storm occurred as the district continues investing heavily in aging facilities. During the same meeting, Davis reported that PVSchools replaced 70 failing HVAC units, upgraded 14 HVAC plants and undertook roofing, flooring, plumbing, lighting and other improvements during fiscal year 2026.
PVSchools has not publicly identified during the meeting which campuses sustained storm damage, the extent of damage to the music classroom or whether instructional materials or equipment were damaged.
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Meet Stacy Stacy Mantle is joining the team at Independent Newsmedia, Inc. as an Education Solutions journalist, thanks to a grant from the Arizona Community Collaborative. She has a long history in education that ranges from teaching junior high and middle school to developing curriculum and standards-based assessments.
Community: A longtime advocate for animal welfare, Stacy is deeply involved in rescue efforts and volunteers with several nonprofit organizations.
Random Fact: Once upon a time, she shared her home with a pet coyote and two wolf hybrids. The experiences were wild enough to become the subject of her first book!
Education: She holds a BA in English with a minor in Political Science, a Post-baccalaureate in Secondary Education, and an MBA with a emphasis on Marketing.
Hobbies: In her spare time, Stacy writes fast-paced urban fantasy novels, crafts small-batch artisan soap, and is always up for hiking or off-roading through the Arizona wilderness with her husband of 23 years.
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