The roof of Lakeside High School in Ashtabula collapsed due to this week’s heavy snowfall.

“You can see the roof actually lifts off the top of the building, you can see the separation of it,” Ashtabula Area City Schools Superintendent Lisa Newsome said. “We are unable to use any part of Lakeside High School at this time.”

The district will remain closed for the remainder of the week due to inclement weather, but Lakeside High School will remain closed indefinitely.

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Lakeside Principal Douglas Wetherholt is now trying to find a plan for the approximately 800 high school students. He said he wanted to get them into a physical classroom as soon as possible.

“Whether that means putting them in a different building than is traditionally expected with the rest of the school, or us moving to an off-site building for the main portion of the school,” Wetherholt said.

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The first priority is finding a location, but more logistics need to be sorted out before they can get their high school students back to in-person learning.

“Transportation, movers, nutritional services, lunch, breakfast, because we feed all of our students,” Newsome said.

After surviving the COVID-19 pandemic, they understand that virtual learning is an option; However, they are not interested in it at the moment. Newsome said she hopes to have students in a physical classroom by the middle of next week.

“Maybe next week we’ll be looking at midweek. I know the Christmas holidays are coming up, but we want to have something prepared before the Christmas holidays. “I would like to see them study in person before we go on Christmas break,” Newsome said.

In the meantime, the district needs to check the remaining schools to make sure there are no additional problems.

“As a parent, that would worry me too, so we’ve done inspections to make sure they’re safe,” Newsome said.