Dead body found in high school swimming pool

Students at a San Jose high school were sent home early Friday morning after a physical education class found a dead body in a campus pool, according to school officials.

The discovery occurred at Piedmont High School, 1377 Piedmont Road, in the East Side Union High School District.

Superintendent Chris Funk said:

“It happened at approximately 8 a.m. this morning during second period, when the students and teacher were out removing the covers from the pool.”

The decedent is believed to be an adult male. They don’t think he was a student but the coroner has not yet identified the body, according to Funk. The pool is in a locked enclosure with a 15-foot fence topped by barbed wire. There’s also a burglary alarm, which did not go off, according to Funk:

“All the doors were locked and the alarms didn’t go off. … That person must have gotten into the pool by climbing over the fence.”

Due to the body’s discovery, school officials released the students at 11 a.m. Funk said:

“It’s a tragic situation, and we didn’t feel it was conducive to learning.”

Classes will resume on Monday, and the campus also plans to go back to normal weekend activities on Saturday, Funk said. The school has a full time social worker on staff, and they called in additional staff to provide counseling services for the students and personnel affected by this morning’s tragedy.

Funk said it was unclear at this time what measures would be needed to clean the pool after the body’s removal, but that the district would be under advisement as to the proper process of making the pool safe to use again.