Classroom, bathroom accommodations made for start of school

LAUREL — Ready or not, here comes the students.

And unfortunately some of the areas of the new Laurel-Concord-Coleridge school facility in Laurel were not ready for the starting bell Aug. 23, said Jeremy Christiansen, superintendent of Laurel-Concord-Coleridge School.

“I’ve come to realize there’s a whole lot that’s not in your control and that’s really hard for me. I like to control a lot of things and a lot of timelines,” he said. “I’ve come to accept a lot more over the last couple of months.”

At last week’s meeting of the LCC School Board, Christiansen said footings still need poured and steel erected in the old kitchen and high school administration area of the building. There’s still equipment that needs to be moved, too, thanks to extra rainfall received in the area.

Due to these delays, the Industrial Tech and Family & Consumer Science classroom will be moved. The lease on the Laurel fire hall was extended for two months for Industrial Tech with students being bussed back and forth.

Family & Consumer Sciences will move temporarily to a special education room set up to teach Life Skills. That room was chosen because it not only has classroom space but also a small kitchenette, and laundry.

Several bathrooms aren’t connected yet including the one for kindergarten students.

Christiansen said teachers have been flexible and creative, willing to schedule large group bathroom breaks. Temporary portable bathrooms have been installed close to the kindergarten classroom outside.

“The nearest bathrooms are either in cottages — for about a month — or in the high school,” he said. “We all know a 5-year-old who might all of a sudden have to go to the bathroom. It’s a long way to a bathroom right now for them.”

There have been other construction challenges related to electricity in the Legacy Gym with the fire marshal inspection requiring electrical accessibility for exit sign and emergency lighting.

“There was a period of about two hours where it was very touch and go as to whether he was going to let us occupy the Legacy Gym with students,” Christiansen said.

“All of those connections and wires had been cut during demolition so now we’re putting in some temporary conduit to at least get that in there. By the time he left, he OK’ed occupancy in that space.”

In other board discussion, Activity Director Connor Quinn said a survey will be conducted to explore the possibility of starting Esports at LCC.

Esports, or Electronic Sports, is an organized school activity in which participants compete in video games between teams and other schools.

Area schools with Esports teams include Wynot, Wayne, Pender, Norfolk, Elkhorn Valley (Tilden), South Sioux City and Ponca. However, with Esports location is less of a concern because no one is traveling — everything is done digitally, Quinn said.

“It came into Nebraska schools about six, seven years ago, started as more of a metro, big school thing and its trickled down into smaller schools across the state. You can get scholarships now for Esports for college, legitimately, full-ride scholarships for Esports teams,” he said.

Although Quinn doesn’t anticipate much crossover participation from students in other sports, practices and competitions can be scheduled to accommodate other activities.

Esports is not sanctioned by the Nebraska State Activities Association.

Cost is minimal at $100 for the year and the school has all of the equipment required to start, Quinn said.

There are two sponsors already interested in leading Esports at LCC.

A special board meeting and budget workshop has been set for 5 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 31, at the LCC High School Conference Room. The next regular board meeting is set for 7 p.m., Monday, Sept. 11, and will include the annual budget hearing. That meeting will be at the Coleridge campus.