RIM OF THE WORLD UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT — Progress on Measure E improvements

By Mary-Justine Lanyon

 

At the March 12 meeting of the Rim of the World Unified School District board of trustees, Chuck Forte and Gary Moon of tBP Architecture presented their priorities for both school sites and work to be done with funds raised by Measure E.

Their proposal calls for work to be done first at Lake Arrowhead Elementary School. The architects have conducted site visits with mechanical and electrical engineers.

To accommodate the HVAC system, the electrical system must first be upgraded. The HAC design recommendations include installing condensing furnaces with cooling coils in the classrooms as well as an air handling unit with a furnace and cooling coils in the multipurpose room.

They will replace the existing generator and the electrical panels as well as upgrade the lighting. Other recommendations include upgrading restrooms, upgrading the path of travel in the building, correcting the interior ramps and upgrading the fire alarm system.

They broke the cost down into four components: HVAC, $4,349,462; electrical, $5,108,502; access compliance, $2,347,859; temporary housing, $1,046,923.

The temporary housing will allow students to continue learning while construction goes on.

Forte and Moon also listed three optional improvements: roof replacement, $979,387; windows, $1,833,117; and shade structure, $621,382. Those will be considered only after all improvements have been made at all the school sites.

As for when these improvements will take place, they projected pre-design to take four months; design development to take two months; construction documents, five months; Division of the State Architect, six months; bid, three months; and construction, 13 months, with construction starting in July 2027 and being completed in August 2028.

The district sold $18 million in bonds in the first sale. Each sale, said Chief Business Official Jenny Haberlin, will be around $17 to $18 million. “We have to spend bond dollars in three years,” she said, “so we want to only sell what will reasonably be spent over that time.”

The school sites in order of priority are LAE, Mountain High, Rim High, Charles Hoffman Elementary, Valley of Enchantment Elementary and MPH Intermediate.

Public Comment

Fifth-grade teacher Alicia Wilson addressed the board on two issues: teacher morale and technology in the classroom and beyond.

“Teachers are feeling overwhelmed, undersupported and not valued,” Wilson said. She pointed to class size and destructive behavior as two of the major issues affecting their morale,

Using her own classroom as an example, Wilson said she has 29 students, seven of whom have IEPs, seven are reclassified ELs (“which is amazing,” she said) and nine with behavior concerns. Her students are reading from a 2.6 to 12^th-grade level.

“Teachers go above and beyond daily,” Wilson said. “Most teachers spend at least one extra hour a day. We have adjunct duties; some have additional stipends, most do not. Teachers want to succeed and want students to succeed.

“We need more counselors, smaller class size ratios and consequences for poor student behavior,” she added.

As for technology, Wilson said she has been teaching in the Rim district for more than 20 years and has seen a shift in technology at home and in school. They have gone from students going to a computer lab once a week to each student having access to two devices – one at home and one at school. She quoted research on the effects of technology on children.

“Today’s children are less cognitively capable than their parents at the same age,” she said, adding that research across 80 countries shows that, once digital technology is adopted, performance goes down.

“We need to refocus our focus,” Wilson said in conclusion “We need to go back to paper and pencil with less screen time within the school day.”

In her report for the Rim Teachers Association, President Nic Nicholas said RTA wanted to express its appreciation for the incentive for retiring teachers who have spent decades of their lives investing in students. “That’s one of the wonderful things about Rim.”

She went on to outline the many things teachers purchase as motivation for their students. And, she noted, “We give up our time, before and after contracted hours. At this time of year many of us are writing letters of recommendation. We coach, mentor, chaperone field trips, open up our classrooms at lunch so students have a place to be. We take on the emotional labor of caring for students. We mediate disagreements, check in, take an interest.

“We believe in our students, believe in the district, invest in it every day,” Nicholas said. “We are eager to see how you will invest in our schools, staff and students.”