As a member of the WCHS Board of Education, I find your very harsh editorial, “Time wasted as building crumbles,” in the June 17 edition of this paper, to be unjustified and demonstrating an apparent lack of knowledge of the process involved in addressing our life/safety needs.
The Washington High School Board of Education has not wasted time in addressing the life/safety issues facing our buildings. It is true that we delayed having the 10-year life/safety survey completed, but for good reason. We had hoped to incorporate all of the needed life/safety work into the building renovations that were proposed as part of the referendum project. The architect did not have direction from the board to complete the life/safety survey until after the referendum failed and the new board was seated on May 11.
The architect delivered the detailed report and drawings to our June 8 regular board meeting, when we looked at them for the very first time. A special board meeting was scheduled for June 10 to discuss the survey and future building renovation plans. At that time, we identified several questions regarding the information the architect had presented to us and called some missing items to his attention. Since there were questions to be addressed, the approval of the survey was not posted on the June 10 meeting agenda, so the Open Meetings Act precluded us from acting on it that night.
The WCHS board then wanted to approve the life/safety survey and get it submitted to the Illinois State Board of Education as soon as possible, so we scheduled yet another special meeting for June 15, and it was approved at that meeting. When did the board of education waste any time on this matter? The one-week delay in the vote was a matter of prudence and responsibility, as we needed to thoroughly understand what we were approving.
The life/safety work, once approved by the ISBE, will have to be completed. One of the major reasons for waiting to complete the survey was the potential for wasted money and effort. Some of the “improvements” that will have to be done under the life/safety survey may need to be torn out or redone when, or if, we move forward with a building renovation.
The board is very interested in hearing public input on the needs of our facility and what our priorities should be going forward. I would encourage anyone that would like to share their ideas with the board to come to one of our regular board meetings on the second Monday of each month and share those thoughts during the public comments section of our agenda.
Thank you for your concern about our school, and please understand that the board of education is always about doing what is best for the students of WCHS.
Tim C. Custis
WCHS board member
