Wednesday, July 30, 2003
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Wednesday, July 30, 2003 |
Crabapple Lane teachers just 'waiting for the call' to move inBy J. FRANK
LYNCH
Any day now, the phone will ring in the homes of Crabapple Lane Elementary School's two dozen teachers, its support personnel, its cafeteria workers, and to alert workers in the facilities maintenance office in Fayetteville. The message? "Start moving in." Dialing the "emergency phone chain" will be Doe Evans, principal of the new north Peachtree City school, which will welcome its first students ever Aug. 11 even though it wasn't contracted for completion until late in the year. On Monday, Evans was still waiting to receive a certificate of occupancy from the state fire marshal. "They wanted to look at it one last time," she said from makeshift quarters at the LaFayette Educational Center. "Unless something unforeseen happens, I'm hoping to have the permits in hand on Saturday, if not earlier," Evans said. "When Cleveland and Minter elementary schools opened last year, teachers worked over the weekend to get everything ready." Crabapple teachers will be working right on up to Aug. 11 to get their classrooms ready, too, Evans suggested, but an elaborate, well-planned moving strategy will hopefully make it efficient and painless. "Once we get the OK we'll try to move in all the administrative stuff right away," Evans said. "All the desks, administrative furniture, the big-ticket items. Then I'll do the phone chain, and as teachers get the word they've been instructed to come on over and move in right then." When they arrive, each teacher will find his or her personal supplies quick on their tails if not already sitting in their classrooms. That's because movers at the county office will be ready to roll out to the schools where Crabapple teachers taught last year, load up boxed and labeled supplies prepared in the spring for the journey, and then deliver them to the proper classroom at the new school. Still more supplies are stacked and ready to move out at nearby Kedron Elementary, where Evans was prepared to double-up her more than 400 charges if the new building had not been finished in time. "It's important to have all that over first before the teachers can set up," she said. The faculty won't have to go it alone. Parent volunteers will surely come out in droves, and the PTO of Flat Rock Middle School has stepped up to lend a hand, Evans said. "Grace Evangelical Church is going to send some volunteers," she added. "They just called me out of the blue." As of Monday, Crabapple had enrolled 475 students in grades K-5. It was projected to house just 417 this year. "We'll probably be closer to 480 by the end of the week," Evans said, saying she had no explanation for the increase. "I still have to hire one more teacher," she said. "We'll have 23 homerooms, four of everything except 5th grade, where we have just three classes." Last spring, rising fifth graders could choose to stay at Kedron if they wanted to, Evans explained. Also last spring, the children voted to make The Cardinal the school mascot. "We have just the cutest little cardinal mascot printed up on T-shirts," she said. "We'll have a naming contest for him later in the year." Evans said she hopes to have an official ribbon cutting of the school on the first day as well.
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