Wednesday, September 5, 2001
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Wednesday, September 5, 2001 |
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'What about our gym?' Parents and educators lobby for school projects forgotten in bond By DAVE HAMRICK
Parents and teachers looking for funds to enlarge and refurbish the McIntosh High School gym heard what has become a familiar refrain from the Board of Education recently. "[The voters] felt like those things were not necessary," said John DeCotis, school superintendent. Improvements to gymnasiums, band rooms, performing arts facilities and the like were included in a special purpose local option sales tax that voters rejected in 2000, DeCotis said. Focus groups said the SPLOST project list was too fat with such proposals and should be pared down with the emphasis on classroom space, he added. "Every meeting we went to, that's what the people that showed up said," agreed Mike Satterfield, director of facilities. So when a bond for new schools and classroom additions was put before the voters this year, those extra projects were left off. Now, boosters and parent groups bring their appeals for funding directly to the school board, and the list is growing. For instance, parents of East Fayette Elementary School students are concerned that summertime temperatures in that school's gymnasium may be hot enough to threaten students' health. Air conditioning gyms is on the list of "some day" projects too, said Satterfield. Only the newest schools about half of the total have air conditioning in the gyms. That's not so much of a problem for gym classes, which usually are in the morning, he said. But temperatures for evening programs are often sweltering, he said. Greg Stillions, principal at McIntosh, said a new gym for the school is definitely not a "frill" item. The current facility doesn't have enough locker space, nor does it have enough seating for assemblies, he said, adding that bands can't perform in the facility either. Boosters funded preliminary drawings and plans for a project that would cost about $3.7 million, he said. Sandy Creek High School boosters also recently petitioned the board for money to build an auditorium, another SPLOST project not funded in the bond issue. If the SPLOST had passed, some of these projects could have been done, Satterfield said. "There are a lot of projects that had been included in the SPLOST that were not included in the bond," he said. Of $3 million worth of projects that staff included in budget requests this year, the school board was able to fund only $500,000, Satterfield said. Air conditioning the gyms wasn't among those requests, he said, adding that parents need to make those kinds of suggestions to their principals, because the principals submit the requests that go into the budget for each school. "The board picks and chooses and we keep a running list and request them again the next year," Satterfield said. "Sooner or later we'll address most of them." Board member Janet Smola suggested staff go a step further and set up a prioritized list of projects with a special account where any extra money can be parked until enough builds up to fund a project. "That would at least give the folks at Sandy Creek and McIntosh a light at the end of the tunnel," she said. DeCotis said this week he is working on setting up an escrow account and priority list.
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