Air conditioning should keep Lakes students cooler

Coeur d’Alene students are headed back to the classroom this week, some to schools that saw big changes this summer.

Installation of an air-conditioning system at Lakes Middle School is expected to be completed by the time students arrive for classes Tuesday.

“Many of our classrooms on the south side in the fall and the spring get in excess of 90 degrees,” Lakes Principal Chris Hammons said. “So it’ll be nice.”

Voters rejected the district’s $40 million levy in March that would have remodeled Lakes, and it’ll be at least two years before another levy is proposed, Hammons said, meaning a new Lakes Middle School won’t be built for at least four years.

The new air-conditioning system should make those years a bit more bearable. It won’t make up for the cramped classrooms, “but we’re kind of used to that,” Hammons said.

Ramsey renovations complete

Renovations at Ramsey Elementary School are winding down, after nearly two years of work and about $3 million.

Amenities include 10 new classrooms, a new gymnasium and a new roof to replace the one that had covered the building for about 30 years. Principal Ann Walker said last week that maintenance workers from across the district were at Ramsey to help get things ready for the start of school on Tuesday.

Students from Project CdA helped construct storage cabinets for the old classrooms similar to the ones installed in the new rooms.

“So the old part of the building is starting to look like the new part,” Walker said.

“It looked like a bomb went off for a long time,” she said, but things are coming together rapidly.

“They’ve done a fabulous job,” she added.

A dedication ceremony for the new school is scheduled for Tuesday at 2 p.m. Walker and district Superintendent Harry Amend will speak, and students will give tours of the renovated facility.

Charter school happenings

Classes start across the state Sept. 5, but students at the Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy start Monday.

They won’t be enjoying the new science classrooms the school had hoped to build but had to put on hold because of booming construction costs, but they could be enjoying a renovated science wing by the end of the school year.

The school plans to update its science classrooms this year. It will add four modular classrooms to house its sixth-grade classes this year, and other classroom changes were expected.

“We’re kind of moving people all over the place to make sure everyone’s in the best spot,” Principal Dan Nicklay said.

The school held a get-to-know-you day Aug. 22. The “Panther Prowl” gave new and returning students an opportunity to catch up with one another and to meet their teachers for the coming year, including new sixth-grade teachers Geri Hagler and Nancy Larsen. Larsen, Idaho’s Teacher of the Year in 2000, and Hagler left jobs in the Coeur d’Alene School District to teach at the academy.

Larsen heads reading group

Nancy Larsen continues her history of involvement in state education issues this year as the new president of the Idaho Council of the International Reading Association.

Larsen served as president of the local chapter, the Panhandle Reading Council, and was vice president and president-elect of the council prior to accepting the position as president this year.

“It’s a position that you work into over a period of three years,” she said.

Intended to promote reading throughout the state, the council hopes to help local schools by providing information about state testing and by hosting reading conferences where educators can meet and discuss reading issues.

“We’re on a path of establishing ourselves,” Larsen said.

Larsen, who was a member of former Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s special citizen task force on government efficiency and effectiveness in 2004, plans to stay in contact with the state Department of Education on state testing issues and provide updates to teachers about what’s happening.