San Marcos schools get upgrades over winter break

By: NOELLE IBRAHIM - Staff Writer | Monday, January 7, 2008 11:04 PM PST ∞

SAN MARCOS -- While students and teachers are looking forward to one more week of sleeping in late or spending time with their families before diving into a new semester, San Marcos Unified maintenance crews are tackling projects they can't do while kids are on campus.

Between installing new flooring in classrooms at San Marcos Middle, and improving lighting in the front parking lot at Alvin Dunn Elementary, district crews haven't caught their breath since San Marcos students dashed off for three weeks of winter break, with visions of holiday cheer and no homework dancing in their heads.

Maintenance crews had another vision in mind.

"This is an exciting time for us because we can plan projects and get them done," said Jim Poltl, the district's executive director of maintenance, operations and transportation. "The priority is the kids are there to learn, so we have to be invisible (during the school year)."

Three-fourths of the district's more heavy-duty projects, such as roofing and asphalt resurfacing, take place during the summer months, when students are on vacation, Poltl said, but the rest are scheduled during winter break.

"During the winter, we get a chance to do a lot of the smaller-scale things inside classrooms -- deep cleaning, painting the interior," he said. "It's a chance for us to get caught up with a lot of lose ends without being interrupted by those daily emergencies that come with school being in session."

With students and teachers away from campus, crews can embark on projects that would be too noisy or dangerous to do with them around.

For example, New Year's Eve crews replaced three 5,000-pound kilns for ceramics classes at San Marcos High, which required the use of a crane to exchange the old and new equipment, said Poltl.

"You have to have a safety zone all the way around (the crane) because you never know what could happen," he said. "It's definitely something we couldn't do with kids on campus. There's less coordinating (necessary), so we can just go out there and take care of business."

The more than 30-year-old kilns were replaced with new, electronically controlled equipment that will make projects easier and safer to create, Poltl said. The estimated cost of the kilns and installation is about $45,000, he said.

"They had pretty much lived their life," said Poltl, said of the old kilns.

Another project that required big machinery was changing all 78 lighting fixtures in the Mission Hills High gym. Because the gym is built on a slope, the distance to the lights is about 80 feet, which makes the task challenging, Poltl said.

"It's very unusual to have to go up that high for lights," he said. "There are only a few styles of lifts that are able to reach."

The project took three days to complete and cost roughly $12,500, he said.

Other projects slated to be completed by Monday, when students return to school, include installing shade awnings around the cafeteria at Paloma Elementary and painting the interiors of classrooms at Twin Oaks High. Crews also began replacing a baseball backstop on the freshman field at San Marcos High, expected to cost $170,000.

"The district holds the upkeep of its facilities as a high priority," Poltl said. "This is a time we can clean up, reorganize and try to make schools run better when kids come back."

The district's transportation department has also been keeping busy while students are on break. Half of the district's fleet of 63 school buses wrapped up three days of annual California Highway Patrol terminal inspections, meant to test the safety of buses and school bus drivers, said district transportation coordinator Mike Sawyer. The other half will be tested during the summer.

"Safety is No. 1," said Sawyer. "The whole bus is inspected top to bottom, front to back."

During the break, the department has also installed more surveillance cameras on its buses and tightened up bus routes.

"The buses are stopped, the drivers are gone ... we can get things done," Sawyer said.

-- Contact staff writer Noelle Ibrahim at (760) 740-3517 or nibrahim@nctimes.com.