The Nicola-Similkameen School District says all of its facilities that were damaged by floods last November have been repaired.

“I’m pleased to report that we’re in very good shape,” Superintendent Stephen McNiven told NL News Thursday.

While over 1,000 students were put in temporary classrooms after three schools – Diamond Vale Elementary, Merritt Central Elementary, and Merritt Secondary – and the SD58 district office were damaged, Stephen McNiven says everyone will be back in their respective classrooms come Sept. 6.

“When I think back to Nov. 15 and Merritt Central Elementary school in particular, it was the hardest hit. That school had a crawl space that was full of water and full of mud, and then of course all of our classrooms that were damaged,” he said.

“That remediation work took place since November and then the repairs of the classrooms. The last thing we are working on is the exterior of the school.”

McNiven says it is “difficult” for SD58 to estimate how much the repairs and other remediation work cost the district, as they don’t have a final number yet.

“We’ve had great support from the Ministry of Education, the province, as well as through our school protection plan, which is our insurance,” he said.

“It is difficult for us to estimate the damage to determine the exact amount but we were in the millions of dollars, and for a small district with a smaller budget it was a substantial amount of money to get us back to whole.”

No schools in Princeton were damaged, with McNiven noting he is also grateful for all of the support over the past few months, saying it helped get SD58 through a difficult time.

“November 15 feels like a long time ago but when I was reflecting on it this morning, it took me back to just thanking everybody that was involved in helping us get through the last number of months,” he said.

“A big thank you to our community, our neighbouring districts including Kamloops, for the support that was provided to both Princeton and Merritt.”