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McDonald looks to reopen school pool and make other improvements
McDONALD
The McDonald school board has made plans to try to set aside $70,000 a year out of the general fund for capital improvements in the district, Superintendent Ken Halbert said.
Topping the list is a plan to repair and reopen the high-school pool, which the board will be working on toward the spring of 2014. The cost of repairs and operating the pool will be examined.
“We have to take a hard look at the swimming pool,” Halbert said, noting that it was built in 1920 and might be the second swimming pool built at an Ohio school.
Halbert said the district focuses on three areas: academics, the arts and athletics.
The pool allowed for the Royal Swan Club, a popular synchronized-swimming program considered to be an arts program by the district. The club used to present shows annually which were very popular with the community.
Halbert said 30 young women a year for the past 70 years participated in the Royal Swan Club. The pool was closed three years ago to save on costs while the district was in state fiscal emergency.
“These schools belong to the citizens,” Halbert said, adding the board hopes to be able to reopen the pool so that services it had offered can start up again.
This also includes working with the village to allow summer swim programs that are part of the village’s summer recreation program.
He noted most kids in McDonald learned to swim at the pool, and summer programs for senior citizens such as hydrotherapy, as well as programs for adult use of the pool were offered in the past.
“The board will do everything in its power to bring back the pool,” Halbert said.
Also in the plans are seating at Gamertsfelder Auditorium. Some seating is missing because 20 chairs broke. The board will decide if it wants to replace the broken chairs in the next three to five years. Halbert noted the board might decide to replace the chairs, which are narrow and need to be larger.
The district does not have any capital-improvement levies, so funding must be found by the board to take care of a long list of repairs needed at district school buildings.
Halbert said that every Friday, building principals go through their buildings, inside and out, with a custodian and look for what needs repaired. The list of what needs to be repaired on a three-to-five year project plan also includes:
The roof over the high-school gym, which leaks constantly, and the auditorium roof, with small leaks, all of which have been spot repaired by the district.
Regrade and reblacktop the pavement which runs up to the building at the high school. There has been water going into the back of the high school and there has been water in the boiler room. It damaged the electrical box, which had to be replaced.
A large transformer that supplies power to the high school, located eight feet from the back of the school, sank and allowed more water to the bottom of the transformer. The transformer needs to be lifted, and work needs to be done on the foundation to level it again.
At Roosevelt Elementary School, the hillside the school sits on is shifting. Work must be done to stop gaps in curbing, sidewalks and the parking lot.
The high school has 32 computers, but plans are to have a new computer lab by January 2014. The state has mandated (but not provided funding for) that there be enough computers for students to take state testing on individual computers by 2015.
By late spring 2014, the plan is for the district to be wireless. Students can bring their own technology to the school and use it.
The board plans to examine whether there is anything it can do to reduce energy costs, especially in the high-school gymnasium. The board is looking into whether it can change the lighting system and recoup its investment in two years. The lights are the old-style vapor lights.