Community tours sagging, shifting schools

On Monday afternoon, more than 25 people loaded into a yellow school bus and took the first Great Falls Public Schools scheduled bus tour of a few of the facilities cited for maintenance or total rebuilds in the proposed Oct. 4 school bond.

Longfellow Elementary was the first stop on the trip and one of the first schools slated to be rebuilt if the bond passes.

Longfellow Elementary is built above Chowen Springs, but not far above.

When crews do maintenance on the school work in the crawl space, they load their supplies onto kayaks and walk through the water in hip waders.

The gumbo-like consistency of the land beneath the school has caused more than a few problems for the structural integrity of the building.

Principal Cal Gilbert met tour-goers at the front doors of the school, pointing to cracks in the structure before inviting the group inside. An addition built onto the west side of the building is slowly pushing into the original structure, causing bricks to crack and the older portion to bow against the weight.

“This is a living, breathing building,” Gilbert said. “We constantly have to do walk-throughs to make sure there are no tripping hazards.”

Superintendent Tammy Lacey said despite the swamp-like nature of the Longfellow property, modern engineering and a possible shifting of the school into the northwest corner would solve the issues plaguing the current structure.

The group gathered in Kimberlee Boyd’s third-grade classroom to experience the full effect of the school’s structural deficiencies.

Soft, wooden floors groaned beneath the feet of tour-goers as they inspected the uneven plane of the room.

The center of the classroom is the highest point and slopes down either side in a dramatic decline. Boyd said she had to buy each of her students boxes to store their pencils because they roll off of their desks.

Gilbert said the warped floors are due to old pipes that have blown more than 30 times, releasing steam and moisture beneath the building. The moisture caused the center of the floor in Boyd’s classroom to raise almost a foot higher than the lowest parts of the room.

The tour-goers walked down the halls Gilbert described as having the “fun-house effect,” to view deep cracks running along the walls and floors.

“Seeing is believing,” said Kay Silk, a tour-goer.

The group loaded back in the bus to visit the 86-year-old Great Falls High School.

Though in drastically better condition than Longfellow, Assistant Superintendent Tom Moore described plans to expand and modernize the school.

“We will do no harm to this campus,” Moore said. “We will only enhance.”

The bond proposes expanding classrooms, building a central hub for students and creating STEM classrooms.

Next, the bus brought community members to the district’s oldest school, Roosevelt Elementary. The 88-year-old facility faces security issues and lacks proper ADA requirements.

Hot lunch programs were developed in 1946, but Roosevelt was built in 1928 so a makeshift kitchen was built off the gym in an old locker room. The only bathroom on this side of the building has no door.

Principal Rhonda Zobrak expressed concern about the exposed rusted fire-suppression pipes filled with pressurized water that run along the hallways. Should the rust eat all the way through the pipe, the halls would flood.

Like many of the schools in the district, Roosevelt has an old intercom system that only borders on functional.

“The intercoms don’t reach all parts of the building,” Assistant Superintendent Ruth Uecker said. “For those rooms we use air horns to signal messages.”

Next the bus took the group to North Middle School.

When the school was first built, the roof was almost immediately compromised. Rather than replacing the roof, it was deemed most cost effective to build a new roof over the old one. This resulted in untraceable leaking problems that pose unsightly safety issues in several areas of the school.

Engineers rigged a tarp, garden hose and trash bin system to gather water in the cafeteria. Sometimes during busy lunch periods, janitorial staff struggles to keep up with the flow of students, the management of trash and the timely need to empty and replace the water-catching bins.

The structure of North is also shifting. Principal Brad Barringer told tour-goers about an elderly woman who needed help walking down the hallways because she could not stand straight against the drastic pitch in the floors.

The group ended its tour at C.M. Russell High School to view the structural deficiencies along the outside walls that need to be addressed.

“You can actually see the problems firsthand,” said Mitch Tropila, state representative from House District 26. “I’ve heard about the leaking roofs, the shifting buildings and the safety issues. I think it’s important to take tours to actually see the problems and put a finger on it. It really shined a light on it for me.”

The bus tours continue at 8 a.m. Tuesday and at 4 p.m. Wednesday. To sign up for a tour, contact Cindy Gordon at 268-6001.

The Tribune will also be hosting a public forum at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 6, in the Great Falls High School Auditorium. GFPS will lead tours before and after the event.

Follow Sarah Dettmer on Twitter @GFTrib_SDettmer