Staff and children at a Regina French language school and daycare are adjusting this week, after a water main break — the latest maintenance headache for their building.

The daycare at the Gard 'Amis educational centre had to close one classroom space when water poured into a crawlspace and produce strong odours.

"It was smelling you know [like] wet dirt. It wasn't nice," Sylvie Gaudreault, director of the daycare, told CBC News. "It wasn't harmful, you know, but just inconvenient."

Two groups of pre-school children, the Monkeys and the Pandas, moved to the centre's main building of Monseigneur de Laval school.

"To dry it faster for the smell .. we needed to install a vent that was pushing that air outside so that's why we couldn't keep the kids here," Gaudreault explained.

She said the youngsters were not too bothered by the move.

"The only thing is a room that's different," she said. "For the first morning it's surprising, but after that they're just kids. They're happy to be somewhere else."

Steve Ekoudi, director of infrastructure and transportation for the school board, said the there are other problems with the building.

"It's not just in the daycare," Ekoudi said. "We do have leaks elsewhere in the facility."

The roof, he said, needs attention.

The school board says it asked the province three years ago for funds to make repairs, an estimated $500,000.

"It needs to be replaced now," Ekoudi said, noting the roof has gone past its 25-year life-span.

The board has already spent more than $100,000 on patching the roof, but the ceiling still drips.

"[You] don't want to be working or studying in that type of environment," he said. "And that's what frustrates everybody because we want to make sure that we give the perfect condition. We want the teachers to essentially just worry about education. We don't want them to worry about a leaky roof."

The school recently inspected the building, to ensure the water problems were not creating issues of mould.

The inspection was done in mid-January and the facility was found to be clean. Another inspection will be done after the daycare is fixed.

The province has noted the building's roof is on a priority list, but official funding would have to wait for the spring budget.

With files from CBC's Joana Draghici