Floor boards that are warped from water damage. Classrooms that are either 55 degrees or 85 degrees. Ceilings that leak, and in some cases, partially collapse into classrooms around students trying to learn.

The conditions at North High School were abysmal, students and staff told the school board Monday, begging the board not to delay the replacement of their building or hinge the project on the passage of a levy.

“Somehow, North went from being a certainty to a possibility, and other groups’ want to take precedence over our basic needs,” Janice Weaver, an academy principal at North, said during public comment. “Once again, North’s 1,000 combined students and staff are being left behind, and we risk continuing to miss out on the equity that the rest of the district receives.”

North is the latest neighborhood or school community to pack a board meeting in recent weeks to advocate for its place in the district’s long-term facilities plan that is still awaiting a board vote.

The plan currently up for review calls for North High to be replaced, but in the second phase of the plan, and not before the passage of a permanent improvement levy to pay off the