Portage Township Schools employees are being paid for their time off because of the Aug. 11 derecho that crippled the district, the School Board decided Monday. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that if the Indiana Department of Education doesn’t issue a waiver for all the missed school days, any extra days tacked onto the school calendar won’t mean extra pay. The rationale is that employees would have already been paid for those days, Superintendent Amanda Alaniz said.
She doesn’t expect the state to issue a waiver for nearly two weeks of missed instruction. “It’s not about getting days waived; it’s about prioritizing quality instruction for our kids,” Alaniz said.
Classes began Tuesday despite hundreds of power outages remaining in the district two weeks after the storm hit.
Alaniz said she has been concerned about bus stop obstructions and other challenges as the city continues working to clear fallen trees. “Going back was not an easy decision. It takes a lot of effort to arrive at what is the best-case scenario,” she said.
“We need to get the school year started,” Alaniz said.
If a family has extenuating circumstances like still lacking electricity, they should work with the school, she said.
School Board President Andy Maletta commiserated with parents still without power and perhaps worried about how to get their kids bathed, along with other challenges.
“The Portage Township Food Pantry, they have been very, very busy,” board Vice President Wilma Vazquez said.
Maletta acknowledged Alaniz and her team’s leadership.
“This happened so fast and so quick,” he said, but the administration leaped into action, interacting with the City Hall command center and county officials, helping families and making sure food went to families instead of being thrown out. “The work that you all did, it was inspiring.”
Alaniz showed a video created by connection coach Tara Brown, a consultant who visited Portage the day of the storm for the annual staff back-to-school meeting. Classes were to have begun the following day.
Brown, who lives in the south, said she has seen her share of hurricanes and tornadoes, but the Northwest Indiana derecho was something else. “I’ve not seen a sky get so dark so quick,” she said.
“I’ve seen a community pull together and figure out how to suit up and show up in a moment in time that was not on the calendar,” Brown said.
“There’s going to be things that happen that are not in the norm,” including kids returning with a lot of stress.
“We need some great love and patience. I’m bringing my suitcase full of it,” she said. “Bring and swing that dopamine.”
In other business, the board approved issuing up to $15.7 million in bonds to pay for projects that include extensive remodeling at Portage High School.
The Levenda Learning Lab will be converted into a new media center,
Project Manager Mike Schipp, of Fanning Howey, walked the board through the planned improvements.
The existing media center is oversized, he said, so a smaller media center with fewer books makes sense.
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The new space will have two extra stairways to make it easier to access bookshelves on all levels, and acoustics will be improved. “We’re being very surgical in that to bring it up to current day standards,” Schipp said.
The existing media center is being turned into a cafeteria and kitchen. The school now has four dining areas, totaling 17,340 square feet, that will be combined into one space at what is now the media center. “We only need about 8,700 (square feet) to accommodate four lunch periods for 540 students,” he said.
Consolidating the areas will help with security and supervision. “We won’t have any more runners escaping down the hallways,” Schipp said. “I was probably a runner back in the day.”
The main gym is being renovated, too. Adding air conditioning means removing the old ceiling, so it will look more like a fieldhouse with the space opened up, he said.
Construction is expected to begin in October for the new media center, with the gym untouched until after basketball season.
Project manager Paul Todoroski, of Skillman Construction, updated the board on the construction of the new middle school.
Demolition has begun on the old IT building, and interior demolition has begun on the former Aylesworth Elementary School. Once those are both gone, the space will be cleared for construction of the new Aylesworth Middle School. That then will allow the existing Willowcreek Middle School to be demolished.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.