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The Woodlin School District has recently had to deal with
several serious facility issues. The district, located on
the eastern plains of Colorado between the towns of Woodrow
and Lindin (hence “Woodlin”), serves 114 students
in one PreK-12+ facility. The original school building, built
around 1960, has the regular array of needs for a school that
is more than 45 years old and not designed for today’s
educational requirements. However, recently the school has
faced some extraordinary circumstances and has had to identify
every possible option to make ends meet in the face of these
problems.
Among the facilities issues the district has had to address
in the past year:
Construct a new water treatment system: The state
health department identified that issue and required the district
to remedy it.
Move and secure an exposed high voltage
transformer in close proximity to the elementary school playground:
While in the district on a routine visit a Colorado Department
of Education employee brought the dangerous situation with
the transformer and the playground to the attention of the
district. The district was not aware that the circumstances
posed a serious health risk. The district was able to mitigate
the problem and relocate the transformer with the help of a
state grant and financial assistance from the power company.
Replace the roof on the school: although the roof had been in
need of repair/replacement for some time, a severe spring hail
storm in 2005 damaged the roof beyond repair and shattered dozens
of skylights, producing severe water damage throughout the school.
Asbestos abatement: During the demolition of the sections
of the school that had sustained severe water damage as a result
of the hail storm, crews exposed an asbestos contamination
risk that was serious enough that the state health department would
not allow the school to reopen until professional contractors
had abated the situation.
Fire: In the winter of the 2005-2006 school year, the district
suffered the latest in the series of catastrophes, a school
fire that burned a section of the school and produced extensive
smoke damage throughout virtually the entire main building.
The school’s
insurance policy paid to have the damage repaired.
Although the district has managed to address each of these
serious problems by various means (insurance, help from the
power company, state grants and contingency funding, local
donations, etc.), it has been at a tremendous disadvantage
in doing so. The district’s total bonding capacity is
less than the cost of one new school and the district’s
voters have not passed a bonding measure in over 20 years.
Therefore, any local funds they have been able to use have
had to be scraped out of district operating funds. Even still,
increased local funding efforts will not be able to offset
the need.
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