Although the planned $4.3 million health/life safety repairs at Washington Community High School are required by the state, some people are questioning the academic value of such repairs.
Some of the work to be done over the summer includes a new roof, new plumbing, electrical work, removal of asbestos tiles, new windows in most of the buildings and renovation of the heating and cooling system.
The state labels these health and life safety issues, but some people want to know how these repairs will directly impact academics.
Jennifer Essig is a past graduate of WCHS.
“I’ve been in the building recently. It looks the same as when I graduated.
“What I want to know is, what will [the construction] do for us? Will it actually improve academics, or will we just get a pretty building?” she asked.
Arthur Lersch, of Washington, another opponent of the proposed renovations, criticized one specific aspect of the plans.
“What is a couple months of air conditioning going to do for the high school?” he asked.
Indeed, teachers at WCHS said the students have learned to deal with the extreme temperatures due to old, inefficient windows and a 35-year-old heating and cooling system by wearing layers to school.
“The ones who actually think about it and plan for the day wear a lot of layers,” Mindy Stoller, a science teacher at the high school, said.
But, she said, wearing layers can only help to a certain extent and, when it is really hot or cold, the teachers need to make a decision of whether to stay or seek out a more temperature-friendly room.
Dan Zehr is a language arts teacher at WCHS.
“In August and September, the thermometer in my room will sometimes read 94 to 95 degrees. Everyone is just sweating too hard to think or to concentrate.”
On the other end, Lilli Seaton, a reading specialist, said the temperature in her classroom was 43 degrees one week in December.
It was the same week Sean Kerwin’s science class had box fans set up around the room to keep cool.
“The temperature issue is a real thing. Sure, you can teach in a hot building, but it’s like driving your car in the summer with no air conditioning and the windows rolled up,” Kerwin said.
Constant changing of classrooms causes a lot of disruption.
“We lose a lot of teaching time when the students have to transition to another room. Every day my students ask me, ‘So, where are we today?’” Seaton said.
District 308 Superintendent, Dr. Jim Dunnan, said the lost time due to unregulated temperatures is not a small matter.
“For the first two to two-and-a-half weeks of the school year, we run on a shortened schedule because of the heat. I’d say we lose about 15 hours of teaching time right in the beginning of the year,” Dunnan said.
In addition to the lost time, Dunnan reiterated the negative impact extreme temperatures have on academics.
“If you’re freezing, that’s what you’re thinking about, not academics. It creates a poor teaching and a poor learning environment.”
Science teachers at the high school said it is easy to see the direct impact both the life/health safety improvements and the renovations would have on academics in their department.
“Everyone knows that to have a competitive edge these days, you have to know how to use technology,” Stoller said.
“We ought to be incorporating more and more technology in the classroom, especially in science classes, to make the students more competitive and better prepared.”
But, she said, even if the school had enough money to have more technology, the science labs are not equipped to handle it.
They have to worry about constantly tripping breakers due to the out-dated electrical wiring.
“When we have labs with a hot plate, we can’t use more than a few without tripping the breaker,” Stoller said.
Good, dry, storage is also in short supply. The teachers questioned where they could store any welcome additions to their available lab equipment.
All these things affect their lesson plans.
Kingden said his class’s plant unit had to be moved back because a leaky ceiling in a storage closet forced him to move materials away from the water to where the plants’ mini green houses are usually kept.
The water also ruined some urea in the storage closet, making the whole second floor of the building smell like urine for a long time.
“We’re doing the best we can with what we have. We’re willing to work at it, but we see what’s out there,” Stoller said.
Beyond aesthetics and academics
Of course, teachers said, even more important than aesthetics and academics are student and teacher safety in the school building
Dec. 11, 2009, hot water pipes in the ceiling burst, spewing scalding hot, rust-colored water all over Lilli Seaton’s classroom.
After professionals cleaned the carpet, Seaton was at the high school Thursday sorting through rust-covered materials while a substitute teacher taught her classes.
Twenty-two computers and several shelves of books and teaching materials were hit by the murky hot water flowing from the ceiling.
“We won’t know how many of the computers will still work until they are completely dried out and the tech department can try to turn them on again,” Seaton said.
But Seaton and the other teachers were focusing on what was not damaged in the incident.
“The only reason that room was empty was because the conference room had flooded before,” Seaton said, explaining that an adjacent connected classroom had suffered the same fate a day earlier from a different burst pipe, prompting the teacher who would have been in the classroom when the pipes burst to change classrooms.
Seaton had a preparation period while another teacher, Dan Reem, was scheduled for a class in the room.
“Our American Studies class had relocated because the heating was not functioning.
“Our class is a cross-curricular English/history hybrid that is 90 minutes long, and there was no way we could keep kids in 45-degree conditions for that long and expect them to learn.
“Maintenance had repaired the heat, but there had been another pipe leak the day before the ‘big one.’ So, although the heat was working at the moment, the carpets were wet, so that was the reason we had relocated our class that day,” Reem said.
“They all would have been burned. We were very lucky the teacher and students weren’t hurt,” Seaton said.
Pipes wont to burst are not the only safety hazard posed by the deteriorating building.
Some of the most potentially dangerous class work is done in science labs — labs that, at WCHS, are about 40 years old. Their age and setup cause daily complications for WCHS science teachers.
Stoller and other science teachers said a limited number of outlets in each room compounds safety hazards.
“We have to use extension cords and power strips whenever we do anything with electricity,” Kerwin said, adding, “We have to do things we’re taught not to do with Christmas trees and decorations.”
In addition to having a very limited number of outlets, the location of these outlets also poses a safety hazard.
“The outlets are in the ceiling, so we have to hang the extension cords,” Kerwin said.
Jonathon Kingden, another WCHS science teacher, said even the overall setup of the science lab classrooms compromises student safety.
“Instead of individual lab stations, we have lab counters running along the walls. So, when we do a lab, there are 28 students clustered against the counters, and it is very difficult to see over them and to watch what’s going on. And there’s a lot to watch, especially when they’re using Bunsen burners and other equipment,” Kingden said. “It’s kind of like you’re just waiting for something bad to happen.”
The science labs also have inadequate ventilation, with only one lab with one hood to suck out fumes from volatile chemicals.
“The week I did dissections, I had about six students go to the nurse complaining about nausea because of the fumes,” Kerwin said.
Pointing Fingers
How did the school let the building get to the point where students and teachers are narrowly escaping severe burns and holding their breath just waiting for something to happen?
“Some people are pointing fingers at this board and administration for these problems, but it’s important for people to realize that plumbing problems don’t emerge overnight.
“If they’re looking to blame someone, they should really be looking at board members from ten or 15 years ago. I would guess that most of the building’s plumbing and electrical problems began to emerge back then and should have been dealt with back then,” Reem said.
According to Dunnan, the regional office of education requires a health and life safety survey of the building to be done every 10 years. Dunnan said the last survey was done in 1994 or 1995, and the district did a lot of work then.
When it was time for another survey in 2004 or 2005, Dunnan said they were granted an extension.
“A couple of extra years at that point wouldn’t have made a whole lot of difference. The problem is really the age of the building. When you have a building with parts that are more than 65 years old, things are going to deteriorate faster.”
