From the Kingsport Times News...
JW Adams had to remove their doors to their classrooms due to building code violations. My question is "Why didn't the county's Building Inspector, who happens to be on the School Board, see to this problem before now???
WISE - The proposition of installing doors between classrooms at Appalachia Elementary School has opened a Pandora's box of fire safety and building codes resulting in the removal of doors at J.W. Adams Combined School, a pending state fire marshal's evaluation of two other schools, and a potentially expensive situation for Wise County.
Doors were removed between classrooms at J.W. Adams on Wednesday after all county schools were dismissed at noon for Kids Day at the Virginia-Kentucky District Fair & Horse Show. Robert Mullins, a member of the school board and the county's building code official, in his latter capacity ordered the "immediate" removal of the J.W. Adams doors as a result of a fire marshal's evaluation of that school.
Mullins said there were two main issues at J.W. Adams: No installation or safety code modification permits could be found authorizing the installation of doors about 20 years ago, and whether or not the doors promoted or hampered students leaving the building in case of an emergency.
"In a sense, the egress issue was probably the biggest problem facing J.W. Adams. Not the walls," Mullins said.
J.W. Adams, Appalachia Elementary, and L.F. Addington and Coeburn middle schools were built on the "classrooms without walls" model that arose in the early 1970s until swiftly throttled by the result of teachers trying to teach four or five different classes of students in the same open space.
Walls and doors were installed at all but Appalachia Elementary, which got walls but no doors. Mullins could find no modification permits for the installation of Appalachia Elementary walls, either. Records were located for the other two schools.
This summer, Wise County School Board member Mark Hutchinson wanted the board to approve having doors installed at Appalachia Elementary by school division maintenance personnel for possibly $40,000, but the board opted for a modified motion after Mullins raised the potential of fire and safety code issues.
The board approved installation of doors at Appalachia Elementary based on whether or not the fire safety codes would allow such installation, and if modifications were required, to review the nature of those modifications and cost estimates to accommodate them before going ahead with the project.
Now J.W. Adams has no doors, Appalachia Elementary isn't likely to get any at all any time soon, and the two other schools await an evaluation that might lead to modifications and unanticipated expenses for all.
This past week, Deputy State Fire Marshal John McCormick provided Mullins three options for J.W. Adams and Appalachia Elementary: Take down the walls and start over according to code; install a building-wide sprinkler system; or install a sophisticated fire/smoke/heat detection system in the buildings.
"And keep in mind (L.F. Addington and Coeburn Middle) haven't been evaluated yet," Mullins said Friday.
Mullins, School Superintendent Nolan Kilgore and two other members of the board's building committee - board member Milas Franks and Ron Vicars, the school division's finance director - are leaning toward the fire detection system option. The committee meets Monday, and the full board will meet at noon Tuesday at Wise Primary School to take up the matter.
"An automated fire detection system is the preliminary plan (most likely to be recommended to the board on Tuesday)," Kilgore said Friday. "We've got a couple of decisions to make. How to fund it, and authorization of bids. So we're trying to do some preliminary research right now to see just how much money we're talking about."
If the board approves the third option, Kilgore said reinstalling doors at J.W. Adams and installing them at Appalachia Elementary won't be considered until the fire detection system is installed.
"Once that is installed and tested, then we'd also have to take a close look at egress in those buildings, the exit locations and how classrooms are arranged. How the doors swing and how students are exited," he said. "We have to do all that first, and then assuming - a big word, assuming - all goes well, then we'll consider reinstalling doors at J.W. Adams."
Rather than slap the old doors back into place, that is a separate issue posing its own set of complexities, Mullins and Kilgore said. Mullins said the buildings were designed with exterior doors for the open classroom concept involving egress. The egress issue with walls and doors installed poses safety codes all their own.
"There's no more danger at those schools today than there was a week ago," Mullins said. "Everything (fire drill-wise) works. But if you've got a door that swings the wrong way, or a classroom of 25 students that must go through a classroom of 25 students to egress the building, then you've got a problem. It's something you can't sit on if you know that."
Hutchinson said he "hates that the doors came off Adams," but at the end of it all, the schools should be more safe.
"The one plus out of it all, the one thing you've got to concentrate on, is that it will be safer for the kids," he said. He is also concerned whether other schools built on the open classroom model are safe as well.
Kilgore agreed there is a silver lining to this particular cloud.
"Whenever you have unexpected expenses that are not budgeted, it is certainly challenging to overcome those and find funding," he said.
"On a positive note, our schools will be safer. So if there is a silver lining here, we will have a more elaborate, sophisticated (fire detection) system. That's the only positive slant I can put on it, but I think it's a pretty good one. Schools will be safer as a result."
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