EDMONTON — Poor handicap accessibility, asbestos in the glue securing tile flooring, lack of hot water and odor in the restrooms are just some of the problems officials with the Metcalfe County School District face with aging facilities.

Four out of five of the district’s schools have been slated for replacement by the Kentucky Department of Education — North Metcalfe, Edmonton and Summer Shade elementaries and Metcalfe County Middle School. Three of the four were constructed in the 1950s and one was built in the 1960s.

The school district is hoping to replace the middle school first.

“It’s our top priority,” said school board chairman Steve Thompson. “Just guessing, with what we’re wanting to do, it would be additions and renovations. We’re looking to attach it to the high school. Our plan is to make the high school a 7-12 high school.”

There will be a clear separation between middle school and high school students. However, the schools will likely share a kitchen and media center, he said.

District officials are also hoping to add an auditorium to the school at some point.

The school district is at least two years away from having enough money to fund the construction of a new middle school.

“That is if we don’t have any help from the outside,” said Pat Hurt, superintendent. “That is our timeline.”

The district has put aside roughly $2 million of its own money to fund the construction project. If the district can continue to save as it has from year to year, Hurt said it will have enough money to pay for the project on its own.

“Any time you’ve got old schools you’ve got old school problems,” she said.

The middle school has at least five different levels which make it impossible for a wheelchair bound student to maneuver throughout the school without the aid of a ramp. The school has multiple levels because the structure has been expanded over the years.

“That was the way they were originally built,” said Herby Bunch, director of transportation and maintenance. “There weren’t any ADA guidelines to go by when this was built.”

At one time the middle school had a ramp, but it was too short and was taken out.

“We had to take it out because you’ve got to have six feet of walking space width in the hallway,” Bunch said. “That’s building code.”

The middle school’s ramp was four feet in length, he said.

Installing an elevator in the school is not an option because of the expense.

“It will take at least two shaft elevators to make it accessible for everybody, plus some ramps on the outside of the building,” he said.

A shaft elevator would cost the district an estimated $100,000 to $150,000, Bunch said.

If the middle school has a student who is wheelchair bound, the district makes accommodations for that student.

“We either keep them on a floor that is accessible and have teachers come to them or we keep them in another facility where there is accessibility. None of it is ideal and we know that, but it’s just when you have an old building with five floors and no way to put in an elevator you have to get creative,” Hurt said. “Parents work with us to make those accommodations work either at the middle school or another facility. Sometimes they go on to the high school a year sooner to make it work. It’s a challenge for us.”

Air conditioning in the gyms at all four schools is also an issue.

“We have to continually watch how we use them in the summer months because if they get too hot we can’t use them,” Hurt said.

The school district may purchase a portable air conditioner for the middle school.

“We’re going to test it at the middle school to see if it makes a difference. If it works we can do that times four,” she said.

Once the district builds a new middle school, officials will then turn their attention to the elementary schools.

“All three elementaries are slated to be replaced by two new ones,” Hurt said.

Kentucky schools are required by the state to rewrite their facility construction plans every four years. Metcalfe County rewrote its facilities plan two years ago and at that time there was discussion of moving North Metcalfe and Summer Shade Elementary School boundaries to carve two new districts instead of three, she said.

“You might take Edmonton’s population and some might go toward the south to Summer Shade and you create a new school there,” Hurt said. “You would do the same at the north end. You just might have to move them closer to town to where Edmonton would go out and they would come in, and you build two new ones.”

District officials discussed building three new elementary schools in the beginning, but Thompson said the district didn’t have a large enough population to support three elementary schools.

“You have to have a minimum of 300 students to open an elementary school,” he said. “The state’s projection for (grades) 1-6 would be below 900 students and wouldn’t justify having three elementary schools. We were right on the boarder line and things may change. We’re probably a year and-a-half away from going through this again.”

Like the middle school, all three elementary schools have problems related to the age of the buildings, including asbestos in the floor tile, multiple levels, poor handicap accessibility, lack of hot water and odor in the restrooms.

The odor in the restrooms is one of the biggest complaints district officials get from parents at North Metcalfe and Summer Shade.

“The odor is where urine has soaked into the concrete,” said Bunch.

Poor ventilation in the restrooms doesn’t help the problem. North Metcalfe restrooms have no windows, but the ones at Summer Shade do. Even with a window at Summer Shade there is still a slight odor.

Bunch has applied an acrylic epoxy sealant to the restroom’s concrete floors at both schools.

“It’s not supposed to let anything soak down into it,” he said.

A heavy wax coat is also applied to the tiled floors at all four schools to keep the tiles from chipping and exposing the black glue containing asbestos.

Bunch monitors the asbestos flooring closely and submits a report on it to the state every six months. The schools’ asbestos flooring is also inspected by state officials once every three years.

“It’s a big deal. Asbestos is,” Bunch said.

Poor handicap accessibility is an issue due to the many levels at each school. The district makes accommodations for those students wherever it can regardless of what it takes, he said.

There are steps at the front entrances of all three schools. Edmonton Elementary is the only elementary with a wheelchair lift. There are no handicapped ramps inside any of the schools because the hallways are too narrow. Edmonton Elementary has a handicapped ramp, but it is outside.

Luckily, the district doesn’t have a high population of handicapped students at any of its schools. When there is a student with special needs, district officials make adjustments for that student.

Edmonton Elementary was built in pods, which was the style for schools in the 1960s.

The pods are essentially individual buildings. Over the years none of the pods have been connected. Why the pods haven’t been connected is a question people often ask Bunch.

“That’s the way the architect designed it and that’s the way the board of education approved it to be built,” he said.

For students to go from one pod to another, they have to go outside.

“There is a safety issue here,” Bunch said. “All of this is open. There’s nothing to keep a predator from coming in from the road. It’s also open to the weather.”

Gymnasiums at all three elementary schools are separate standing structures, which means students must go outside the main school to attend physical education classes.

At Summer Shade, the school’s library and computer lab are adjacent to the gym.

Over the last 10 years, the district has updated the electrical system in all schools.

“We’ve done a complete electrical update of all of our schools,” Bunch said.

Interactive white boards were recently installed throughout the schools.

“We have had to add a lot of additional outlets just to have technology, because those buildings were constructed before schools were built for the technology that we have today,” the superintendent said.

While the waste water systems at North Metcalfe and Summer Shade are not necessarily deemed to be problematic, they are not as modern as they need to be. There is no city sewer service in the communities where the schools are located.

North Metcalfe has a septic system with lateral lines. Summer Shade has a wetlands system.

“A wetlands is where, instead of sewage going to a lateral line, it actually comes up on top of the ground and is absorbed by plants,” Bunch said, adding the systems were designed and built by state officials but are maintained by the district.

Both systems are inspected by the local health department twice a year and are required to meet state requirements in place when they were installed, said Tom Buchanan, environmental health program manager with the Barren River District Health Department.

Because the three elementary schools and the middle school are slated to be replaced, the state will not allow the district to repair the restrooms.

While the schools slated to be replaced have some problems, they are functional. Hurt said she is proud of what facilities the district has.

“We do a lot to cosmetically improve the looks of our facilities because we take pride in what we have, even if it’s all we have, but we know we need to replace them,” she said.