Problems Will Still Be There Next Year

As summer approaches in the Lakeland School District, one question keeps arising: Is this environment conducive to learning?

Few classrooms are air conditioned, and the inner rooms at some of the schools have no real ventilation. How hot is it at Lakeland High School?

“I would compare it to a Tupperware dish,” said one Lakeland High School employee. “You put water in it, place a small rodent in the dish, then put the lid on it and heat it in the microwave for 15 minutes. That’s what it’s like during the day.”

Just how hot does it get? Teachers at the high school and at John Brown Elementary School have recorded temperatures in their rooms at more than 90 degrees and the custodian measured the circulation vent over one such room at the high school at temperatures nearing 130.

Students compare the classrooms to petri dishes.

“You can’t learn when all you can think of is going outside and cooling off. All you can think of is how hot you are,” said Lakeland student Landon Isbell.

“They figured out that the reason it was so hot was because the louver that provides the only ventilation for the inner rooms had been blown shut. The problem has never truly been fixed, though. They opened it, but the wind keeps blowing it shut, and since we don’t have any windows, we can’t do much to cool off,” continued the employee, who didn’t want to be quoted by name because of fear of reprisals from school administrators.

Students and teachers are concerned about other maintenance problems plaguing the school, including an invasion of small vermin.

“The ants - we’ve befriended them. It’s like being in a picnic all day. Currently, they’re pets,” said the employee. “I was OK with it until I heard that a lady in a nursing home died of 1,600 ant bites. Now I’m a bit concerned about our multi-legged friends. But the spiders are not our friends. They’re huge. It would be good to find out whether or not they’re poisonous, but I stepped on the last one so hard there was nothing left. Someone was supposed to come in and throw down poison, but it never happened.”

“The ants are nasty. You find them in the lockers and in the classrooms,” said Isbell, a junior. “But what I would really like is faucets in the bathrooms that actually work. Right now, only one faucet works. There aren’t any stall doors, either. It’s terrible.”

Another maintenance problem can be found out on the baseball fields behind the high school.

“It used to be a forest area,” explained Ken Busch, a teacher at the school who also coaches softball. “When they cut down the trees to make room for the fields, however, they didn’t remove any of the stumps or roots. They simply covered the area with topsoil. Now, the area is continually settling as the roots decay, and we have to keep spending money to add more dirt. The school has put a lot of money into it.”

These maintenance issues are not due to a shortage of custodial staff. In fact, students and administrators are quick to say that the head custodian, Daryl Rosenbusch, is doing an outstanding job.

“If he’s not here, the school doesn’t function,” said Lakeland Principal John Myers. “Daryl is great!”

This leaves two possible explanations for the maintenance problems, and most students at Lakeland agree it is a combination of both.

The first is the lack of funding for school upkeep. The last maintenance levy for the district was passed nine years ago, and the district’s growth quickly surpassed the money provided in that levy. A new levy will be proposed next year.

However, this is where the second concern arises. The high school is more than 20 years old and is beginning to experience problems related to age, causing more maintenance issues to arise. As a result, some board members are concerned that the levy will not be able to fully cover all of the issues related to school upkeep.

These items will not be fixed over the summer, either. Money for capital development will be spent to remedy the air conditioning problem at John Brown Elementary and to add expansions to the parking in three different areas.

There are no plans to add extra ventilation at the high school so far, mostly due to the cost. This means when students return to the high school next year, they will be facing the same 90 degree temperatures, as well as a rash of new issues related to school upkeep, such as aging pipes.

“Yeah, the pipes are old,” said Isbell. “I think that’s why the water is all white and milky.”

Many of the water fountains are broken, anyway.