Students will

have to wait until the middle

of September

to start class.
By Terry Karkos
Staff Writer

PERU – Four years ago, Marilee Colpitts had a dream that was steeped in the educational heritage of America at the turn of the century.

The mother of seven children realized that dream on Sept. 5, 2001, when she opened the Heritage School, an independent, prekindergarten-to-grade 8, one-room school.

Last June, after visiting husband Richard’s parents in Cape Cod, the family returned to their Route 108 farmhouse to find the adjacent school steeped in about three inches of water.

During the five days they were in Massachusetts, a small hot water heater had burst, flooding the 24-by-36-foot school.

It destroyed the boys’ and girls’ restrooms, $2,000 worth of contents, and caused thousands of dollars in damage to the structure’s interior walls, flooring and school furniture. Mold had also settled in the walls.

“It was grotesque,” Marilee Colpitts said. “The good news is that we had insurance on it. But anything on the floor was lost. All the cabinets were destroyed and a lot of paper. Three bookcases were ruined. Power strips for the computers were warped and melted. I don’t know why a fire didn’t start.”

Marilee’s 6-year-old daughter, Abby, and son, Andrew, 13, discovered the debris-strewn mess.

“I thought it was bad, and it was just frustrating,” said Abby, who will start first grade at Heritage School when it opens in mid-September.

Marilee Colpitts said she opened the front door on June 27, the day they got back, and water just gushed out, carving a depression in the front walkway.

But the family was unable to do much cleaning because their chronically ill 10-year-old son, David, whose colon doesn’t function, was the recipient of a Make-A-Wish Foundation of Maine trip to Disney World in Florida that left on June 30.

After putting the matter into the hands of their insurance agent and the six-member Heritage School Board, the family left for Disney World to fulfill their son’s wish.

Meanwhile, the directors packed everything up that was salvageable and placed the boxes in a large metal storage bin parked in front of the school.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal when we left for Disney World. I got a call at the motel where we were staying – I was talking into a Mickey Mouse phone – and was told we’d be back in the building on Aug. 1. The flooring was redone in four hours,” Marilee Colpitts said.

However, neither Colpitts nor directors had realized the extent of interior damage to the walls and the mold problem. The insurance company hired a contractor and work that began this summer was still progressing slowly by Aug. 29.

“We have 11 students coming in, well, potentially 13, and there is still a lot of work to do. The cabinets we ordered were the wrong size. The countertop where the sink goes is just lying on the floor. It just blows me away,” she added.

The Heritage School was supposed to open Tuesday, Sept. 2, but that was rescheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 9. As of Aug. 29, however, Colpitts said they probably won’t open until Monday, Sept. 15.

“School had been going really well. The idea behind this – multi-age learning – really works. It took us two years to get insurance because we’re a nonprofit, private school. And we were at our most financially stable point this year.

“In our first year, Staples even donated a U-Haul-sized trailer load of school furniture to us twice. That was thousands of dollars worth of material that really helped make the school work. Now we have to replace it all,” she added.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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