What I found interesting in the article was the description of the weight room. The room was approved to both be expanded and have ventilation/HVAC installed due to its current 'condition' being a potential health hazard.
It was noted in the article that the weight room was 36 years old, built in 1972.
In the article it states:
So what this says is that the money we are paying for the weight room is not being borrowed, but is a part of our 9.72 tax hike. This is very clearly an item that in light of having to make a tough cut could have been cut.The district hasn't improved its weight room since it was built in 1972, according to schools Superintendent Victor Lesky.
Lesky, who wanted the weight room doubled in size to accommodate increasing student loads, kept pressing one fact home: The money, $1.2 million, is already in the district pot, the result of the approval two weeks ago of a 9.72 percent increase over last year's budget.
If you have better information let me know, but my recollection is that the weightroom - located under the gym, in its current state was not purpose built as a weight room in 1972. The gym addition may have been completed at that time, but until the mid to late 1980s the weight room was in the small auxillary gym that was converted to a wrestling room for a period and I'm not certain its current use. That room was on the home bleacher, girls lockerroom side of the gym.
Under the gym was the equipment storage area between the boys and girls lockerrooms. The equipment was relocated to the old junior high wrestling room (formerly the stage that opened up to the gym). The weights were then moved in. If it was 1988, that would make the room 20 years old.
Age also seems to insinuate old equipment. For years the football team, who mostly used the room, would have a lift-a-thon to raise money for new equipment. I know there were dumbbells and other pieces purchased by the wrestling team. I don't know to what extent this has continued, but for some time there was a new piece of equipment or two per year being added to the weightroom and unsafe or broken equipment was removed.
It is bothersome that in hard times when cuts have to be made we go with expansion of a weightroom. Having been in the current one, a converted big storage closet, I understand their needing to put the HVAC in, but increasing the size is a nice want at the time we can ill afford it.
1 comment:
Ross,
Your knowledge of the school and it evolution are great to hear and give us perspective on timelines that the administration appears to gloss over.
What I find really interesting is they keep bringing up the HVAC as being part of the "unsanitary" conditions.
I have a child in the HS, and in MANY of the rooms the HVAC does not work, it drips, and is generally not in good working order.
If you want to do something that benefits the SCHOOL, don't you think they would repair the HVAC throughout the building and not just in the weight room?
It seems to me that when it comes to sports, this district has no problems throwing money at it, but when it comes to the rest of the student body, and might I add basic education, they well has run dry.
We got a shiny new football field, a new track, we are getting a new pool, and now, a state of the art weight room. My guess is when you start adding these up, we probably have well over $10 MM in sports expenditures in just the past couple of years. Think of what could have been done with only a fraction of that money had it been put into educational resources.
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