Valley High School set to reopen after broken boiler fixed

Students are expected to return to classes at Valley High School on Wednesday after the New Kensington school was closed for the past two days.

While the New Kensington-Arnold School District was among many across the Pittsburgh region that closed Monday because of the threat of significant snow, its high school was closed again Tuesday because of “heating issues.”

While high school students had a flexible instruction day, the district’s elementary schools — Martin, H.D. Berkey and Roy A. Hunt — were open for regular school days Tuesday.

A boiler at the high school was down and needed to be fixed, and is now “good to go,” Superintendent Chris Sefcheck said Tuesday night.

“School is on regular schedule tomorrow (Wednesday) unless we get unexpected weather issues,” he said.

The heating problem also caused the district’s school board to postpone its regular monthly meeting, which was scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday in the board room at the high school.

When a new date for the meeting is determined, it will be announced, according to the district.

At a school board meeting in December, board member Bob Pallone, chair of the board’s buildings and grounds committee, said boilers at Martin, Berkey and Hunt are among potentially millions of dollars’ worth of maintenance and repairs needed at the district’s schools.

However, the high school’s boilers were installed in 2013 and not expected to need replacement for at least another 10 years.

Pallone said he was hoping to get more information about the heating issue at the high school at the school board meeting, but it was canceled.