Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Five elementary schools in the Warsaw Community Schools district should be much cooler when they welcome students back to school this year.
The schools - Atwood, Jefferson, Leesburg, Lincoln and Silver Lake - were the first to get air conditioning under the administration's two-year project.
Greg Schroeder, director of buildings and grounds for WCS, said Thursday that four of the five schools should have their air conditioning ready to go by the time school starts.
Lincoln Elementary, because of the type of air conditioning required, "may take a week or two longer," Schroeder said.
Most of the schools have roof-mounted air conditioning units, but Lincoln Elementary requires self-contained units, he said.
Those air conditioners are manufactured in Texas, and the manufacturer has a backlog right now that is preventing Lincoln from getting its units on time, Schroeder said.
"Our 34 units are part of 6,000 units on order right now," he said. But he expects the air conditioners for Lincoln (and a few for Jefferson) to be in and operational within the first month of school.
Even with the delay, said Rande Thorpe, business manager for WCS, "It can't be any worse than it was. We knew it was going to be real close. There's not a problem with local companies, just the manufacturer."
In fact, said Schroeder, "the contractors have been knocking themselves out to get it done."
Any work done after kids return to school will be done during evenings and weekends so the students will be disrupted as little as possible, Schroeder said.
Air conditioning in elementary schools became an issue over the past several years as the start date for the school year was continually pushed earlier in August. Students and teachers, despite using fans, opening windows and distributing water bottles, have been exposed to classroom temperatures that sometimes soared to more than 90 degrees.
In August 1997, the school board approved a two-phase air conditioning project, with these five schools scheduled for this year, and with Claypool, Madison and Washington elementaries scheduled for air conditioning in 1999. Lakeview Middle School's air conditioning will be done in two phases beginning next year.
Thorpe said the cost this year to renovate the first five schools will be within the school board's budgeted amount of $963,000.
