Beach Haven School Students May Be at Eagleswood Until June

Beach Haven School students can expect to be at their temporary home at the Eagleswood Elementary School for the balance of the school year.

“I’d like to say we’d be out of there sooner, but I don’t want to make a promise I can’t keep,” said Patricia Daggy, superintendent/principal of the Beach Haven School.

The school’s 63 students and 20 teachers and staff members were displaced following Superstorm Sandy. Daggy said the storm severely damaged the ground floor of the school, which celebrated its 100th anniversary last spring.

“The building took in 2 feet of water, and because we couldn’t get back to Beach Haven for two weeks after storm, the water just sat there, and that made the situation worse,” she said. “A lot of families couldn’t return to their homes, and some lost their homes and had to move off the Island. But we still kept most of our students. There were two families who were fairly new to Beach Haven, and they moved out of the area after the storm.”

She said loosened floor tiles resulted in asbestos being exposed, since it was part of the adhesive glue that held the flooring together.

“That’s the way it was done in older school buildings such as ours,” said Daggy. “When that gets done, then there has to be a lot of environmental testing. School buildings and hospitals are subject to the strictest building safety codes in the state.”

“Everything has to go out to bid, and that contributes to this being a very time-consuming process,” she said. “That’s why I’m really not counting on being back in the school until the school year ends and we can be back together again in September.”

“Helping to ease the transition was the wonderful outpouring of donations of school supplies, books, coats mittens and other items,” she said. “I had one parent tell me that while she felt so poor, at the same time she felt so rich because of all the kind-hearted people.”

Retailers had hoped that Christmas 2012 would mark a turning point when they could start to relax safe in the knowledge that consumers are in the mood to spend freely again. Sadly, this scenario did not materialise, and the latest festive period will be remembered for its fierce discounting, particularly in the fashion sector. While some chains, such as John Lewis, shot the lights out, for many, healthy, like-for-like sales – which strip out the boost from new space – only served to mask the fact they had to sacrifice margins to entice shoppers through their door. Here is what we learnt.

Morrisons blamed its weak performance on the fact that it still does not sell food on the web and only has a handful of smaller convenience stores. These weaknesses contributed to the Bradford-based grocer posting a 2.5 per cent fall in sales over Christmas, in contrast to its rivals. Both Tesco and Sainsbury's delivered booming online grocery sales over Christmas, up by 18 per cent and 15 per cent respectively, as well as enjoying robust growth in their convenience stores. Dalton Philips, the chief executive of Morrisons, will update on March on its online plans with a trial expected later this year.

Marks & Spencer's latest clothing and homewares sales not only missed City expectations by a country mile, but also marked its sixth-consecutive quarter in negative territory. Its chief executive Marc Bolland described the performance as "not yet satisfactory", but blamed the fall on the company's decision not to match the fierce discounting of rivals as it sought to protect profit margins. M&S said this enabled it to sell more products at full price and running 7 per cent fewer promotions helped it avoid a profit warning, but analysts downgraded it.

Tesco delivered its strongest UK underlying sales before Christmas, following a period of under-performance. The 1.8 per cent rise in sales over the festive period put listed grocery rivals Sainsbury's and Morrisons in the shade. Its Christmas performance vindicates the ￡1bn investment by Philip Clarke, chief executive, unveiled in April, to turn around the UK operation with more staff, revamped products and refurbished stores.

JD Sports continues to struggle with Blacks and Millets, which it bought out of administration in January 2012. JD described the trading of the two outdoor chains as "disappointing" over Christmas and said that it now expects the group's full-year profits to come in at about ￡60m, which is at the low end of City expectations. However, the sportswear group vowed to deliver a "substantial improvement in trading" at Blacks and Millets this year.

While Sainsbury's and Tesco battle it out to lay claim for the crown of the grocery sector's Christmas winner, low-profile Aldi continues to power ahead. The German discounter has charged ahead of its rivals by launching a huge expansion in its fresh fruit and vegetable offer, as well as ramping up the brands its sells, including Marmite and Carlsberg. Aldi grew its sales by 30.1 per cent over the 12 weeks to 23 December, according to Kantar Worldpanel, giving the company a small – but fast-growing – market share of 3.2 per cent.