Part 2: Roof Woes and Foes!
By: A. Clark, A. Smith, S. Valenzuela, N Dartez, C Broussard
During the summer, Kaplan High was under construction due to Hurricane damage. Many teachers and staff members were affected by the construction. We conducted interviews with some teachers and staff members that were affected by the construction and damages.
Working during the construction itself was very difficult for staff. Every day the staff and janitors, like Mrs. Dorian came to the school not only wondering when the construction would be finished, but also when school would start because of delays. The construction was relatively slow. A main factor of this was constant rain damage. While the roof was being worked on, it would rain so much it seemed like a waterfall pouring into the school. The library was a difficult place to work on because it was one of the more affected places of the school. A large amount of damage was done to the floor.
It wasn’t just the library that was bad though, to quote Mrs. Dorian, “The back rooms like the laundry room and such, looked like a tornado had directly ripped through the room, the damage was so bad.” The worst part wasn’t the work, it was the fact that staff would usually work long hours and often came home so tired they could barely do anything because they were so worn out. When asked about when construction is expected to end, she said they do not know. Between the constant rains and the problems popping up left and right, it is still unknown when construction will end. We also interviewed the Head janitor, Mrs. Lisa and this is what she had to say: “To prepare, We had to cover furniture” because it would rain in the school because they were working on the roof during summer school. They also moved everything around, and cleaned everything when they were done with it all. “When will it be finished?” If it wouldn’t rain so much, it would be finished sooner. It was all a mess everywhere.
The library underwent major renovation during the roof project. According to Mrs. Alyson the library was originally going to just have the ceiling and roof redone until they got the greenlight to remove the carpet and hardwood floors. The project also saw over 1,000 books coming down and replaced which took a lot of time out of Mrs. Alyson’s summer. However, she considers it a “blessing in disguise.”
We got to interview Mrs. Marypat and here’s what she had to say. Her personal experience during the construction was constantly seeing falling rubbish from the ceiling. As the construction got underway summer school was also being held at Kaplan High. She stated, “We were losing rooms to work in. One day we could use the library, then the next day they could not because they would be working in that one particular room.” “ When testing came around, it was very difficult to find rooms to test in.” They started with over one hundred students in the summer program, so you could see how hard that is. They had to use the living room in the FACS class. They also had to use different offices.
There is still construction going on to this day, and thanks to the staff members that we have interviewed, we now know more about the construction that happened over the summer and how it affected them.
Part 3- Coming Soon!