ASHLAND – The landscaping in front of Archer Auditorium at Ashland High School will have a fresh look thanks to a donation from the AHS Class of 1980.
Superintendent Doug Marrah told the board of education Monday night that stones saved from McDowell Auditorium in the old Middle School, which was razed last year, are going to be used.
“It would really be neat to have those two stones that we saved be a focal point,” Marrah said.
Class of 1980 member Holly Stevens said the group has raised close to $5,000, enough to do Phase I of the project. Stevens said other AHS classes have pledged to match any money she collects to fund more landscaping outside the auditorium, which was built two years ago.
“The landscapers are ready to go,” Stevens said.
In other facilities news, Marrah said the air conditioning unit is functioning at Edison Elementary. The unit was installed over the summer, but issues arose during the process. Plans currently call for a similar unit to be installed next summer at Taft Elementary.
“At the beginning of the Edison project, we talked about doing Taft and Edison simultaneously. One of the reasons we didn’t is so that we could see what worked and what doesn’t. We’ve definitely determined some things that we need to consider differently moving into the Taft project,” board member Rick Ewing said. “I’ll be the first to admit I’m as frustrated as any. Granted I didn’t have to be in the classrooms, but it took us way too long to get the air conditioning running.
“So as we look to consider the project in Taft, lessons learned will be applied.”
Board member Dr. James Wolfe said it’s important that students at Edison have an equal experience to students in the newly built Reagan building.
“As we work to establish equity across the district, this is a nice step in that direction,” Wolfe said. “The things that we do for the least of our kids will reverberate more in the long run so I want to make sure we have Edison as fully functional and equitable to Reagan as we possibly can.”
Marrah said the high school field house project is moving forward, with donations continuing to come in.
“We’ve had a great two or three months in terms of fund-raising. We’re over $900,000 that we have in terms of fund-raising. We still have a lot of conversations to come,” Marrah said.
The superintendent also said the board needs to consider what it wants to do with the high school in the summer of 2019.
“We know we need to do the windows and we need to talk about the AC there. We know that would be a two-summer process probably. And then what are the other things that we want to do,” Marrah said. “I think we need to have more discussion about what is the big picture at the high school versus just putting in AC or do we want to do more.”
In other business, the board approved the purchase of six AEDs from HeartSmart, Inc. The devices will be used by athletic teams when they travel to other schools.
