Schools' maintenance director reports on state of facilities

The Hot Springs County School Board received a department update from Maintenance Director Jere Apland on Oct. 20, starting with the new bus pickup and dropoff zone project that began at the end of May, and managed to stay on time and on budget.

“The contractor and engineer did a great job,” said Apland, who added that the middle school’s lockers have also been remodeled. “We tore them out to nothing. We replaced all the fixtures and piping, and added new, taller partitions. They went closer to the floor, so they’re way more private. Next year, I want to try to do something in the visitors’ locker room, so that’ll be next.”

In the meantime, the district also split its old unisex bathroom “in the shop” into separate boys’ and girls’ bathrooms.

“I thought they were going to be small, but they ended up being quite large, so that helped that building a bunch,” Apland said. “We’ve also cracked, sealed and striped all the parking lots. Years ago, I said we should do that about every five to seven years. I think it’s been six years since we last did it.”

Apland acknowledged the short-term expense of such work, but he noted it helps avoid larger long-term term expenses such as replacing asphalt to deal with potholes.

“Next year, I’m going to pick out the worst parking lots we have, and do asphalt sealing on them,” Apland said. “If we can catch up on asphalt sealing over the next few years, we won’t have to replace asphalt floors.”

Apland explained that the schools have been installing vinyl planking, and are “getting away” from carpet and ceramic tiles, the latter “so we don’t have to strip and wax it every year,” and proudly touted having addressed the gym floors at all the schools in the district.

“This is the first year we’ve stripped the elementary’s rubber floor,” Apland said. “We stripped it off and put on a new sealer, I want to continue that every year. It really cleans it up.”

Apland reported that Samsung Marquees have been ordered for the elementary and middle schools, while funding is being explored to replace, rather than repair, the high school’s non-functional Marquee.

The district has also been replacing its older bulbs with LEDs throughout its buildings and parking lots, with initial concentrations around the middle and high schools, as Apland pointed out that LEDs require changing “hardly ever,” whereas the district’s preexisting bulbs required changing two times a year, at a cost of $400 each, versus the LED cost of $250 per bulb.

Apland is working to secure at least partial state funding for replacement roofing on the elementary school, and is seeking an engineer to provide a consultation on the middle school’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.

“The building’s run on compressor air,” said Apland, who expressed interest in digital room heaters for the classrooms. “It’s probably 1990s technology. We want to build an all-electric system. That’s got to be more reliable than air valves opening and closing, because that’s not very reliable.”

Apland then noted, “We’ve got some floors up there that keep sinking,” and while “the fifth-grade wing has never been jacked up, we jacked up the seventh and eighth grades, I think (for) a lot of money, so we’re going to get a structural engineer to take a look and see what it’ll cost, to do whatever rooms are bad.”

Of the sixth-grade science room in particular, Apland said, “You can put a ball on the counter, and it just kind of rolls downhill.”

Apland anticipates such measures taking three to five years to complete, and warned, “It will be very inconvenient, whatever years we decide to do it,” before he advised the district to be ready to meet and greet the state assessors at its schools within “the next 30 days or so.”

According to Apland, “They’ll assess all our buildings, every component, and look in every room at our floors, roofs, anything to do with the buildings, rating them from one to five, with one being the worst. We’re three and above on everything.”

Although the district scored two ratings of “two” during its previous assessment seven years ago, Apland noted they’d been elevated to “four” and “five.”

Indeed, Apland hopes to use the state assessment to impress upon the state itself the need for state funds to replace the elementary school roof.