Local News - August 2003

Three schools get facelift

Painting now on 7-year cycle

By JEREMY ASHTON, LTN Staff Writer

If clothes make the man, then a fresh coat of paint may make a building.

Students and teachers returning this week to East Lincoln High School and Catawba Springs and North Brook elementary schools will be welcomed back into three freshly painted buildings.

The paintings were made possible by a new $80,000 line item in the school district’s capital outlay budget.

“It keeps the schools looking sharp,” Superintendent Jim Watson said.

Before the funding increase, schools were supposed to be painted every 10 years. Many often went longer than that without a fresh coat of paint.

The added funding means the district can now afford to paint every school on a seven-year rotation, Watson said. Watson hopes at some point the time frame will be reduced to every five years.

A crew from Dewayne’s Painting Co. was still working Friday at Catawba Springs, the last school to be painted. The classrooms and hallways have been finished, and everything else should be done by Tuesday in time for the school’s open house.

In past years, teachers at Catawba Springs would paint their own classrooms, and Duke Power would provide the resources to touch up certain areas of the building. But Assistant Principal Anita Robinson said this is the first time the entire school has been painted since it opened in 1986.

“It just makes things look brighter and more inviting,” Robinson said.

Like Catawba Springs, an addition at East got its first new coat of paint since it was built, according to Principal Todd Black.

Black said he was almost embarrassed to take visitors into certain sections of the building before the paint crews came in.

“It’s unbelievable the difference when you walk into the building,” Black said.

North Brook’s teachers have told Principal Denise Patterson that their school almost looks new. Patterson said everything looks glossier, especially after the floors were cleaned, too.

“It really adds to the climate because it’s very clean,” Patterson said. “It looks very spacious.

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Staff Writer Jeremy Ashton can be reached at 704-735-3031 or jashton@ltnews.com.

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

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