Administrators at Faith Lutheran Day School are one step closer to putting Hurricane Ike behind them for good after the city council on Monday approved a permit for construction of a new day school.
“I was really, really happy,” said Debbie Helweg, director of the day school, which for 26 years has taught local children aged 3 to 5. “It was a long process, but it wasn’t as strenuous as I thought it would be.”
Samantha Johnson, a 4-year-old student at Faith Lutheran Day School, tells teacher Stephanie Hall about her latest "Class News." The school operates out of the Faith Lutheran Church Community Center, because Hurricane Ike damaged its old building.
Meeting a fundraising goal of $3 million is the next hurdle for the preschool to get its new home, free from the flooding and foundation problems that haunted its old location at 4601 Cedar St., on the same campus as Faith Lutheran Church. On Monday the church is hosting its first fundraising meeting to generate pledges and donations.
After Hurricane Ike, Helweg took a flashlight and waded through up to 10 inches of water in some rooms to inspect damage to the school. It was pretty far gone.
“We were Ike’d,” she said. The catastrophic flooding was the last straw in a series of floods that Helweg said have gotten progressively worse over the years.
Since then, the day school lost about half its students because it had to move to the church Community Center, right next to the damaged school.
The center doesn’t have as many classrooms, so Helweg and her staff built dividers to create separate areas in a large meeting room. Everything must be packed away on weekends and on some week days, because the church uses the same space for Sunday school, and allows community groups to meet there.
“The open concept, I’m not a big fan of,” Helweg said. “It’s working, but I’d like to get back to individual classrooms.”
After discovering that repairing the damaged school would not be cost effective, the day school had to apply for a special use permit to construct a new school. The city requires the permit to operate a school in a residential district.
On Monday, the council voted unanimously to grant the permit, with 12 conditions that create requirements for fencing, landscaping, building materials and utility service. One condition that caused some controversy during Monday’s meeting deals with parking.
Councilman Will Hickman said he lives on Cedar Street, near the proposed location of the new school. Parking is an issue, Hickman said, because if two cars are parked on opposite sides of the street simultaneously, it’s hard for cars and emergency vehicles to pass through.
“I’d like to propose an amendment to the conditions,” Hickman said on Monday. “That there will be no parking on the South side of the block of Cedar Street.”
While other council members didn’t dispute that parking on Cedar Street may be a problem, they refused to accept Hickman’s proposal because they thought the city should address parking on a larger scale, instead of tacking it on to the day school’s permit.
“I guess spot legislation does bother me,” said Councilman Pat McLaughlan.
It’s likely Hickman will raise the issue again in the future.
“I would be very receptive of it as a parking issue, and as soon as possible,” said Councilman Phil Nauert.
Helweg said she is grateful to the city’s community development department for helping the day school navigate through the complicated process of getting the permit.
Even students are pitching in to pay for construction of the new day school. This piggy bank lights up and makes noises when children contribute coins to the fund.
“The next step is getting some cash in,” Helweg said. Monday’s fundraising meeting is the first step in that process, and the amount of pledges and donations the church receives will help determine the construction timeline.
But that’s not the only way the day school is raising money. They are seeking help from day school alumni, the church congregation and parents of current students. They will host a silent auction and rummage sale, and the children are even pitching in. Kids can donate coins in a special piggy bank shaped like a railroad crossing sign that makes noises when coins go in.
Helweg said the school hopes to move its fundraising campaign along at a quick pace in hopes of lowering its costs, because the current economic recession has forced construction companies to become very competitive.
“The quicker we can do it, the more advantage we have,” she said. “But it all depends on the money.”
By: Angela Grant on Fri, Oct 23, 2009
Community, News