Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

PHS Students Could Return To Classes In Just A Few Weeks

Students in Prescott High School could return to their normal classes before the year ends is the conclusion of engineers, architects and insurance adjusters.

This would include students in classes from the main building except the computer classes. It could happen as early as two to three weeks.

The decision of when to move back will be left to Prescott school board members. They met last Tuesday, April 9 but put off a decision for now.

Jim Thomas a field adjuster for USF&G (the district's policy holder through local agent Alliance Insurance) told the district the original design of the building impeded the flow of the April 1 fire and students and faculty will be allowed into class following clean-up.

Thomas told the board his assumptions on the damage of the building agreed with engineers and archtiects who orignally designed the structure in 1973.

Archeitect D.M. Lewis told the board while the majority of the damage was to the foyer and offices, once computer class as well as the east classroom at the back of the auditorium would be torn down.

A natural break exsists in the middle of the offices seperating the two classrooms and the second computer classroom will be saved.

A make-shift wall will be put in place at the end of the north hallway where it entered the foyer, giving students access to restrooms and the bandroom down the middle hall.

The wall will seperate the rest of the building from re-building which could be ready to be bid in about six weeks.

While it seems another move back to regular classrooms could disrupte the system again, officials will have to take into consideration students and faculty will be without air conditioning in the temporary classes at the gymnasium as the spring gets warmer.

Lewis told board members that the foyer/auditorium wall might have to be replaced in addition to other work which will be found as cleaning crews work through the structure.

The auditorium suffered smoke and water damage and will have repairs but no major work will need to be undertaken in the facility.

The district could be looking at a price to rebuild the damage before school ends this year and have the remodeling work finished by the end of 1996, ready for a move back during Christmas break.

Lewis told those present at the meeting the district built the new school in 1973 at a cost of $12.70 per square foot for a total cost of $472,000 for the 37,200 sq. ft. buidling.

Rebuilding is expected to be slightly higher in costs.