Post by title1parent on Dec 12, 2009 6:15:50 GMT -5
www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/1933370,2_1_AU11_WINTER_S1-091211.article
Cool schools: Districts
December 11, 2009
By PAUL DAILING pdailing@scn1.com
School without air-conditioning is uncomfortable.
School without ventilation is unpleasant.
But school without heat is impossible.
"The heat is always the top priority, always, always, always," East Aurora School District spokesman Clayton Muhammad said.
With the winter winds blowing, local schools are getting an early test of the heating systems they work year-round to maintain. Most of the major maintenance is done during the summer months when there are no classes, but during winter, the heat must stay on -- even during breaks -- so pipes don't freeze and burst.
In short, the heat must stay on. And in the current fiscal disaster engulfing Illinois schools, it's one of the costs that simply can't be cut.
Money for nothing
In a cost-cutting effort, the cash-strapped West Aurora School District has already suspended several planned repairs and replacements.
In the case of one building, it was a boiler that was scheduled to be replaced. But it's staffers, not students, who will be left in the cold if the administration building boiler blows out.
"We had all our boilers assessed and this one was deemed the one most likely to fail," West Aurora Assistant Superintendent for Operations Pete Kerl said. "Right now things are tight, so we'll try to get one more year out of them."
A brief primer on the school budget crisis: Public schools' yearly funding increase is determined in part by local home values, which have crashed like so much Hindenburg.
Some districts, like West Aurora and Oswego, have it even worse. Those districts funded recent building projects through a specific type of referendum, one that links the schools' funding directly to the crashing home values.
So while other districts will, at worst, get the same amount they got last year, West Aurora and Oswego will actually have less money to pay the higher bills expected in 2010.
Older buildings
West Aurora's administration building boiler will cost about $35,000 to replace, Kerl said. That's chump change compared to the $650,000 it would cost to replace even one of West Aurora High School's three boilers.
Those three boilers were built with a 30-year lifespan. Unfortunately, they were also built in the early 1950s.
Over at East Aurora High School, the boilers -- like the school itself -- are turning the big 5-0 this year.
"There have been some updates to different parts, but in general they are the same," Muhammad said.
Additions like the freshman center, the west wing and the fieldhouse have new duct work connected to the original boiler system, he said.
Even when the heater is fine, older schools can get chilly, Kerl said, citing his district's Hill, Freeman, Nicholson and Lincoln, the last of which closed this summer, but the district keeps heated so decay doesn't get in.
"You still have issues, building envelope issues -- foundations, roof, bricks, those kind of things that can decay and need to be repaired over time," he said. "(A building envelope) is what's on the outside of the building that keeps moisture from getting in, and that's the big enemy."
But it's not that old = cold. Sometimes, it's the update that's the felon.
When the heat went out at East Aurora's Johnson Elementary School in 2006, it was the new addition that went cold. The old boiler was sucking all the gas away from the new addition's boiler.
Backup plans
While district's emergency plans by and large contained detailed instructions for everything from shooters in the building to earthquakes, the emergency plans aren't as specific for utility outages.
Some plans, like Geneva's and Yorkville's, make no mention of outages. Others, like St. Charles', talk about utility outages, but include heat in the "other" category. Using the state's template, East, West and Oswego schools simply let the school "initiate appropriate immediate response actions."
"While we do have plans, we also want to be able to look at any situation and be able to determine the best response to that situation," Kerl said.
Most of the plans involve taking the kids to other schools, like when both boilers broke down in Batavia's Alice Gustafson Elementary School in March.
For the first few days, students showed up to Alice Gustafson in the morning, took attendance, recited the Pledge and then got on board buses headed to other schools in the district.
Other times, the solutions can get, to say the least, creative.
When the heat went out for part of the day at West Aurora's McCleery Elementary in February 2008, some classes continued in "warming stations" on the school buses.
In September of this year, heat went out in part of St. Charles School District's Lincoln Elementary School. While the new boiler was being installed, the district set up giant fans to blow hot air from the still-heated part of the school.
"When the work was going on, we had some unusually cool days in the fall," district spokesman Jim Blaney said. "We had to make the principal over there let the kids know not to wear shorts those days."
But not all measures work for all schools.
The East Aurora School District, for example, has no school bus service. Not only does this mean the district's schools don't have buses to use as warming stations, but kids cannot simply be bussed to other schools and all evacuations must be done on foot.
"All the evacuation facilities are close by," Muhammad said. "If you look at Waldo, for example, the evacuation facility is St. Paul, which is right across the street."
Although they're not likely to be used, some "extreme options" East Aurora has discussed include Internet-based classes and lessons broadcast via Aurora's ACTV public access channel.
"If you look at a scale of one to 20, with 20 being the worst, that would be at the 20 level," Muhammad said.
Cool schools: Districts
December 11, 2009
By PAUL DAILING pdailing@scn1.com
School without air-conditioning is uncomfortable.
School without ventilation is unpleasant.
But school without heat is impossible.
"The heat is always the top priority, always, always, always," East Aurora School District spokesman Clayton Muhammad said.
With the winter winds blowing, local schools are getting an early test of the heating systems they work year-round to maintain. Most of the major maintenance is done during the summer months when there are no classes, but during winter, the heat must stay on -- even during breaks -- so pipes don't freeze and burst.
In short, the heat must stay on. And in the current fiscal disaster engulfing Illinois schools, it's one of the costs that simply can't be cut.
Money for nothing
In a cost-cutting effort, the cash-strapped West Aurora School District has already suspended several planned repairs and replacements.
In the case of one building, it was a boiler that was scheduled to be replaced. But it's staffers, not students, who will be left in the cold if the administration building boiler blows out.
"We had all our boilers assessed and this one was deemed the one most likely to fail," West Aurora Assistant Superintendent for Operations Pete Kerl said. "Right now things are tight, so we'll try to get one more year out of them."
A brief primer on the school budget crisis: Public schools' yearly funding increase is determined in part by local home values, which have crashed like so much Hindenburg.
Some districts, like West Aurora and Oswego, have it even worse. Those districts funded recent building projects through a specific type of referendum, one that links the schools' funding directly to the crashing home values.
So while other districts will, at worst, get the same amount they got last year, West Aurora and Oswego will actually have less money to pay the higher bills expected in 2010.
Older buildings
West Aurora's administration building boiler will cost about $35,000 to replace, Kerl said. That's chump change compared to the $650,000 it would cost to replace even one of West Aurora High School's three boilers.
Those three boilers were built with a 30-year lifespan. Unfortunately, they were also built in the early 1950s.
Over at East Aurora High School, the boilers -- like the school itself -- are turning the big 5-0 this year.
"There have been some updates to different parts, but in general they are the same," Muhammad said.
Additions like the freshman center, the west wing and the fieldhouse have new duct work connected to the original boiler system, he said.
Even when the heater is fine, older schools can get chilly, Kerl said, citing his district's Hill, Freeman, Nicholson and Lincoln, the last of which closed this summer, but the district keeps heated so decay doesn't get in.
"You still have issues, building envelope issues -- foundations, roof, bricks, those kind of things that can decay and need to be repaired over time," he said. "(A building envelope) is what's on the outside of the building that keeps moisture from getting in, and that's the big enemy."
But it's not that old = cold. Sometimes, it's the update that's the felon.
When the heat went out at East Aurora's Johnson Elementary School in 2006, it was the new addition that went cold. The old boiler was sucking all the gas away from the new addition's boiler.
Backup plans
While district's emergency plans by and large contained detailed instructions for everything from shooters in the building to earthquakes, the emergency plans aren't as specific for utility outages.
Some plans, like Geneva's and Yorkville's, make no mention of outages. Others, like St. Charles', talk about utility outages, but include heat in the "other" category. Using the state's template, East, West and Oswego schools simply let the school "initiate appropriate immediate response actions."
"While we do have plans, we also want to be able to look at any situation and be able to determine the best response to that situation," Kerl said.
Most of the plans involve taking the kids to other schools, like when both boilers broke down in Batavia's Alice Gustafson Elementary School in March.
For the first few days, students showed up to Alice Gustafson in the morning, took attendance, recited the Pledge and then got on board buses headed to other schools in the district.
Other times, the solutions can get, to say the least, creative.
When the heat went out for part of the day at West Aurora's McCleery Elementary in February 2008, some classes continued in "warming stations" on the school buses.
In September of this year, heat went out in part of St. Charles School District's Lincoln Elementary School. While the new boiler was being installed, the district set up giant fans to blow hot air from the still-heated part of the school.
"When the work was going on, we had some unusually cool days in the fall," district spokesman Jim Blaney said. "We had to make the principal over there let the kids know not to wear shorts those days."
But not all measures work for all schools.
The East Aurora School District, for example, has no school bus service. Not only does this mean the district's schools don't have buses to use as warming stations, but kids cannot simply be bussed to other schools and all evacuations must be done on foot.
"All the evacuation facilities are close by," Muhammad said. "If you look at Waldo, for example, the evacuation facility is St. Paul, which is right across the street."
Although they're not likely to be used, some "extreme options" East Aurora has discussed include Internet-based classes and lessons broadcast via Aurora's ACTV public access channel.
"If you look at a scale of one to 20, with 20 being the worst, that would be at the 20 level," Muhammad said.