ELEVATOR TO BE INSTALLED AT SCHULTZ SCHOOL IN SUMMER

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Beginning next school year, L.J. Schultz Middle School will have elevator service.

The school district will install an elevator in the 77-year-old school this summer.

Larry Dew, business manager for the district, said Sides Construction Co. submitted the low bid of $131,550 for the project. Dew said the architect's estimate was $150,000.

"We're real pleased with the bid," said Dew. "This is our major project for this summer."

The elevator will be at the front of Schultz School, where the northern addition joins the original building.

"It will serve four stories," Dew said. "We will still have to put some ramps to serve the cafeteria, art rooms and music rooms to make those areas accessible."

Construction is scheduled to begin the first week in June and is expected to be complete before school starts in the fall.

"This is an exterior elevator," Dew said, unlike the elevator installed at Cape Central High School two years ago. That elevator was built in the middle of the school and required a large hole to be dug inside the building.

Included in the cost of the elevator installation at Schultz is some renovation to the entrance and the front of the school, Dew said.

"We need an elevator at Schultz to make it accessible for the handicapped," said Dew, a certified teacher of physically handicapped people. "For the past 10 years it has been my goal to improve accessibility for students."

It is also the law.

Dew said the elevator at Central High has been well used. "The first day the high-school elevator was operable it was in use," Dew said. "A faculty member, several students who had been injured in sports, and students with physical handicaps used it."

Students and staff authorized to use the elevator are issued a key. It will not be used by the general student population.

He said the elevator also will be used by maintenance and custodial personnel.

The school board is discussing the possible need for a new building in the district.

"The board has authorized a re-roofing project, tuck-pointing; we rebuilt the south wall" at Schultz, Dew said. "Every time we have asked the board if they want to invest the money in this school, and each time they have shown a commitment to Schultz School."

The building was built in 1914. An annex was added in 1919. The building served as the city's high school, and in 1953 it was remodeled and became the junior high. In 1965 it was dedicated as the seventh-grade attendance center.