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Leaking Love Memorial needs repairs By ANDIE LEATHERMAN, LTN Staff Writer Nov. 21 - More classrooms and repairs on heating and air conditioning are the two biggest needs at Love Memorial and S. Ray Lowder elementary schools, a school board building and site committee learned Monday morning. Committee members and Associate Superintendent Ed Hatley toured the facilities with school administrators. The committee is touring all schools to prepare recommendations for a February meeting with county commissioners. Love Memorial Principal Kelly Childers told board members the 12-year-old heating and air conditioning system will need replacing in the next few years. The system is having operating problems, Hatley said. Un-insulated lines on the system are causing condensation leaks. Approximately 100 ceiling tiles have been damaged by leaking water, according to Childers. Humidity levels have reached up to 78 percent causing mildew. Normal levels should be between 50 and 60 percent, officials say. Childers estimates four to six additional classrooms will be needed in the next five years. Housings starts are fueling the growth, administrators say. “We’re at capacity. We don’t have a room that’s not being used,” Childers said. Some 458 students attend the school, eight more than its capacity. Love Memorial houses behaviorally and emotionally disabled and trainable mentally handicap programs serving elementary age students across the county and a pre-school program. “For the good of the county, we need to spread the exceptional children’s program out,” Hatley said. Officials say it would be ideal to have a second location east of town serving this population. Some of the students are bused in from as far away as Denver creating 1 1/2 hour bus rides. Guttering needs replacing, Childers told board members. The current system cannot handle downpours that cause leaking into the office. Additional needs include outside speakers which broadcast to the playground and leveling in an after school care area. This room was once the cafeteria kitchen. Administrators hope to later make it into an art room, taking advantage of the floor drain, tiled walls and ventilation system. Additional classrooms and a wing of specialty rooms are on the top of S. Ray Lowder’s wish list. The specialty rooms, which would be smaller than regular classrooms, would include a computer lab, music, art, English as a Second Language, exceptional children, academically and intellectually gifted, Gateway preparation specialists and a teaching kitchen. Another possible solution to overcrowding is building a new school to serve students in and near the city though large tracts of land are hard to find. “Chances are you would have to go slightly out of town,” Hatley said. A fourth kindergarten class will be added after Christmas to relieve overcrowding. State teacher to student ratios for kindergarten have dropped significantly over the past few years, officials say. The school has 425 students, exceeding its capacity of 350. Administrators say most of the growth is in the city’s Hispanic population. Currently, 19 percent of the student body is Hispanic. The office area is overcrowded and should be remodeled, Principal Cindy Poe told board members. There is no health room and the bathroom is in the middle of the office area. The counselor’s office, now located in the office suite, should be moved so a more private access can be created, Poe said. Poe told board members the 1966 heating and air conditioning unit needs replacing. She estimated the cost at $70,000. In one portion of the building, 20-plus-year-old carpet needs replacing with hard floors. “It’s completely worn out,” said George Dellinger, building and site committee chairperson. Other needs include extending the intercom and fire alarm system to mobile units, new library furniture, a paved sidewalk leading to the playground serving third through fifth graders, new acoustical tiles in the gym and covered walkways and a ramp leading to mobile units.
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© 2001 Lincoln Times-News |
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