Weather causes woes for Sun Valley
Students walk Friday next to a mural at Sun Valley Elementary School. During the winter, water runs off the roof and freezes on sidewalks.
As the Washoe County School District community identify ways to raise money for new schools and revitalization of existing schools, we take a look at some of the older campuses and their needs.
Sun Valley Elementary is a year-round, single-track school in Sun Valley, a northern suburb of Reno.
Sun Valley is a Title One school, which means it has a high percentage of low-income children. Title One schools receive federal funds to ensure that their children meet state academic requirements. Most of the students in the school are Hispanic.
About
- Address: 5490 Leon Drive, off of Sun Valley Boulevard
- Phot: 674-4420
- Year built: 1951
- Enrollment: 621
- Capacity: 881
- Fun fact: Sun Valley’s mascot is the lion, and the school’s colors are blue and gold.
Hot topic
Sun Valley’s principal, Alyson Kendrick, said that some of the school’s classrooms are cooled by a swamp cooler system. The high moisture of the cooling system is noisy, she said, and causes books to warp while the system is used.
Renovations
When Sun Valley Elementary School was built more than 57 years ago, some things could not be anticipated. One of them was the amount of time the school would be used, Kendrick said.
The school is used 12 hours a day, five days a week, year-round. Kendrick said this constant use causes problems in areas such as plumbing.
“The infrastructure of the plumping just can’t accommodate the use that it’s getting,” said Kendrick, who added that the school’s plumbing causes occasional leaks and drainage backlogs.
The school buildings also needs rain gutters. When it rains, water slides down the roof and sheets of water spill over the edge, Kendrick said. She said this can be dangerous since ice collects in most of the sidewalks outside of school during the winter.
Some of the school building’s roofs also are damaged and need repair. Kendrick said the Washoe County School District will replace the roofs in the summer, but she is not sure if they will replace the wood that suffered water damage underneath the roof.
Aside from the pressing plumbing and drainage problems, Kendrick said an upgrade to the school’s kitchen floors would be ideal. The floors in the kitchen contain asbestos.
She said she expects the school district will fix the floors over the summer along with the roof.
Technology
The school has a computer lab with more than 30 online computers, and classrooms have their own, too.
This article originally appeared in Reno Gazette-Journal.
