World's Greatest High School
In the superintendent’s secretary’s office and others, water damage, rot, peeling wallpaper as well as strategically placed fans, buckets and towels are common around the windows. The windows cannot be replaced without replacing some of the surrounding brickwork. Replacement has been estimated at $250,000.
Not all features are functional in the Mora High School science classrooms. At science lab stations, not all the sinks work. Teachers have often sent students carrying glass test tubes and other tools to the bathroom sinks to clean, taking time and increasing the risk of things breaking. Science teachers claim they have limited the type of science labs they perform due to it either being difficult to clean or lack of proper equipment and ventilation.
Students learn calculus in this third-floor classroom. It is part of the original wing of the school built in 1936. A portion of the wall has been covered with a fiberglass panel to cover crumbling plaster.
Students learn calculus in this third-floor classroom. It is part of the original wing of the school built in 1936. A portion of the wall has been covered with a fiberglass panel to cover crumbling plaster.
In the high school concession stand, a sign over the sink warns the water is not for drinking. What the sign doesn’t say is the water isn’t potable because lead leached from the fixtures into the water exceeds EPA safe drinking standards of 20 parts per billion. Sinks and drinking fountains in the high school have tested as high as 73 ppb.
Asbestos floor tiles throughout the school are checked by hazardous materials specialists every six months. As they chip or fray, they are patched like these in the school’s kitchen.
In the food service director’s office, a panel comes off the wall in the winter, revealing a cavity in the center of the building. The air gets cold enough in the cavity to freeze the pipes inside. To prevent this, the food service staff runs a small space heater inside the wall.
Not all features are functional in the Mora High School science classrooms. At science lab stations, not all the sinks work. Teachers have often sent students carrying glass test tubes and other tools to the bathroom sinks to clean, taking time and increasing the risk of things breaking. Science teachers claim they have limited the type of science labs they perform due to it either being difficult to clean or lack of proper equipment and ventilation.
The motto hangs on the wall of the Mora High School office and is written on signs as you enter the building: Welcome to the world’s greatest high school. Academically, students at Mora High School perform above state average on standardized tests; athletes win state championships and arts receive accolades. However, the building itself is something Mora High School struggles with.
Everything is functional the boys' locker room, but that’s about all Brandt could say of it. Lots of piping and insulation fill the room that both feels and smells stuffy and damp. Chip Brandt said, “It serves its purpose and the kids don’t really know any better.” Brandt’s biggest complaint is that while the locker rooms are near the football field, they are on the opposite side of the school from the gymnasiums where boys take physical education class and play winter sports.
Insulation in the boys locker room is cracked, held together with tape. This is a common sight throughtout the school.
A broken steam trap caused heat (over 100 degrees on the floor) and moisture issues extreme enough to soften the glue holding the carpet and deteriorate the plaster in this hallway. New carpet will be installed before school starts and the walls are being patched. Access tunnels don’t reach the problem area; the only way to access the steam trap would be to jackhammer into the cement floor.
A door opens this stairway to nowhere. Because of the various additions to the high school, there are small, nonfunction spaces. Notice a piece of plastic gutter has been placed along the wall. The gutter catches water from occasional leaks and drips into a bucket on the floor.
This bucket is a permanent fixture under a student drinking fountain, catching drips from a leak. The bucket is emptied every two weeks. In order to access the leak, the tile and block would have to be chipped away from the front. The pipe cannot be accessed from the custodial closet behind it without removing a large electrical circuit board.
The boiler room the basement of the original high school built in 1936. Some of the boiler system’s condensate return lines are broken. Those that are accessible have been repaired; however there are some encased in concrete under the auditorium that cannot be accessed unless the concrete is ripped up. As a result, water is lost through the steam lines and more water has to be added back into the system. During the last heating season, approximately 100,000 gallons of water had to be added.
School maintenance staff tried to access a broken steam trap through the floor of a wrestling room, but the crawl space doesn’t reach the problem area. The only way to access the steam trap would be to jackhammer into the cement floor in a student hallway.
Steam coils in the ductwork heat the high school throughout the winter. This one has just been replaced. Six coils have been replaced this last year at a total cost of $23,300. Each is custom ordered. Some broke during the school year, leaking into class
The motto hangs on the wall of the Mora High School office and is written on signs as you enter the building: Welcome to the world’s greatest high school.
Academically, students at Mora High School perform above state average on standardized tests; athletes win state championships and arts receive accolades.
However, the building itself is something Mora High School struggles with. While instructors and students are on summer break, Buildings and Grounds Director Chip Brandt is at his busiest coordinating maintenance and finishing repair projects before students return in September.
Floors are waxed and lockers cleaned, but Brandt’s hands are tied when it comes to other more intensive and high priority repair.
The school district has a budget of approximately $550,000 for facility maintenance this year. This money is split between the Trailview campus and the high school. Maintenance funds are used for materials and hiring contractors. This funding does not pay any school employee wages.
Approximately $160,000 of those funds were used to repair a small portion of the high school roof this spring after water began dripping into the third-floor home economics hallway.
Yet roofs aren’t Brandt’s only concern. The boiler is another.
The boiler room the basement of the original high school built in 1936. Some of the boiler system’s condensate return lines are broken. Those that are accessible have been repaired; however there are some encased in concrete under the auditorium that cannot be accessed unless the concrete is ripped up. As a result, water is lost through the steam lines and more water has to be added back into the system. During the last heating season, approximately 100,000 gallons of water had to be added.
What will break next
The high school is heated with steam. Steam coils in the ductwork eventually break. The current Mora High School was first built in 1936. This 83-year-old section of the building contains the main mechanical systems like the boiler.
Various additions were made to the high school over time; the most resent was 30 years ago in 1989.
Six steam coils have been replaced this year at a total cost of $23,300. Each is custom ordered. Some broke during the school year, leaking into classrooms until they were repaired.
Brandt is aware of other problems in the building but is limited in what he can repair without major structural work and expense.
As an example, Brandt knows some of the boiler system’s condensate return lines are broken. Those that are accessible have been repaired; however there are some encased in concrete under the auditorium that cannot be accessed unless the concrete is ripped up.
As a result, water is lost through the steam lines and more water has to be added back into the system. During the last heating season, approximately 100,000 gallons of water had to be added.
On March 13, Brandt received a call that the lower level of the school was flooding, and that water was spraying in through a wall in a storage closet.
The water was coming from the roofs over the gyms.
The gym roofs were not designed for water not to flow off of them and away from the building. Instead, rain and spring melt flow from the roofs toward the center of the building, into a pipe the flows down through the center of the building and into a storm-water drain.
In March this pipe was blocked with ice; melting snow built up and leaked into the building. The school hired a company to steam the pipe, clearing the blockage at a cost of approximately $200.
“The worst is the unknown,” Brandt said. “What is going to break next?... It’s not going to be much longer until something major happens.”
Solutions
The increasing difficulty of maintenance and repair has been the main driver behind the Mora School Board’s push to build a new high school addition to the Trailview campus.
The cost of large projects (like the potential replacement of the boiler system) has long had the school board asking itself: how much money is worth putting in until the school should be rebuilt entirely?
The school board has argued that repairs don’t address other issue of concern like classroom size, removal of lead or asbestos, addition of sprinkler systems or school security. It also doesn’t address the function of spaces with evolving needs like science labs and career-training spaces like the welding and metals shop.
Everything is functional the boys' locker room, but that’s about all Brandt could say of it. Lots of piping and insulation fill the room that both feels and smells stuffy and damp. Chip Brandt said, “It serves its purpose and the kids don’t really know any better.” Brandt’s biggest complaint is that while the locker rooms are near the football field, they are on the opposite side of the school from the gymnasiums where boys take physical education class and play winter sports.
While speaking specifically of the boys locker rooms, but in a way that could be applied school-wide, Brandt said, “It serves its purpose and the kids don’t really know any better.”
Yet bond referendums put forward by the school board have rarely passed. Each has been strongly opposed by residents concerned about the tax impacts. Some have even accused the school of deliberately neglecting maintenance in order to push voters toward building a new facility.
Another referendum
The school board has presented five bond referendums to voters since 2012.
Residents of the Mora Public School District will soon have another decision to make as yet another bond referendum to replace the Mora High School is about to hit the ballot.
The Mora School Board is expected to finalize prices and ballot language in August during a special meeting yet to be determined.
The school’s plan must be approved by the Minnesota Department of Education in what is called a “Review and Comment.”
The vote is tentatively set for Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019.
Watch future issues of the Kanabec County Times for more details on the proposed referendum.
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