MANDATA - The new geothermal climate control system in the Line Mountain Middle/High School has left some students feeling chilly.
At Tuesday night's board meeting, director David Scott Bartholomew informed his fellow board members he had taken calls from parents saying their children reported "freezing their butts off" in some of the classrooms.
"We pay a lot of money to run this school. Kids shouldn't have to wear their coats in class," he said.
Superintendent Dave Campbell said the classrooms in question were wood and metal shops at the northeast end of the building that have garage doors, higher ceilings and are more open than a normal classroom.
Naturally, it would take longer to heat those rooms compared to more closed classroom, he said.
Plus, it's a new system and it's still being adjusted to the needs of the school, he said.
"We just put a full system online, and it's only two rooms need balanced. For a geothermal system that's heating the whole building within a week and a half of coming online and going online, that's phenomenal," Campbell said.
It didn't help that one of the coldest times in recent memories hit either, he added.
"It's a perfect storm (for those classrooms)," he said.
Josh Bower, project manager from Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates, was not at the meeting to answer questions about the new system.
The middle-high school's heating, venting and air conditioning (HVAC) system was converted to geothermal this past year. In a geothermal HVAC system, glycol - a coolant similar to antifreeze - is distributed in and out of wells through a series of pipes and cycled through the building in a closed loop to either heat or cool the rooms, depending on the need.
About 100 wells were drilled in the parking lot between the school and the stadium. A geothermal system exists at Trevorton Elementary, too, where the wells are underneath the playground.
Campbell said the Mandata building is being adjusted faster and more efficiently than the Trevorton school did.
He also noted the cooling system would have to be balanced in the warmer months, and some classrooms might experience being too warm.
In other business, the board approved:
- The purchase of three Dell Desktop computers to complete the upgrades to the elementary classrooms a cost of $2,149.29.
- The resignations of Jill Yisrael as head field hockey coach effective Jan. 20, and Tara Werley as girls middle school basketball coach effective Jan. 22.
- The advertisement of a head field hockey coach, a boys head soccer coach, a girls middle school basketball coach and a cafeteria worker.