NO SUMMER VACATION

It's a dream come true for a ninth grader bent on revenge.

Cape Central Junior High School, only two months into summer, looks like a hurricane hit the classrooms and hallways and wrecked chairs, tables, ceiling tiles, mirrors and even a stove or two.

But Cape Girardeau School District Facilities Coordinator Dave House chuckles and assures that everything's OK. The mess is part of his plan.

Every year, House and his maintenance crew -- folks like Charlie Hill, Janet Voelker, Brent Englehart and Lisa Dodd -- take on a never-ending task: trying to make the school buildings better, prettier places before the next year starts. Their agenda includes de-gumming desks and removing them, emptying and cleaning the cabinets in every room, mopping and stripping wax.

Usually, teachers help get down to the nitty gritty.

In the end, the work makes the hallways, rooms and newly painted orange lockers look like masterpieces. And after their work year after year, it would seem summer maintenance is as much a necessity as teaching.

Take this summer, for instance. CJHS Room 224 is being renovated into a keyboarding room to accommodate a new class. The room is under the drill bit as shelves, wires and Internet access have to be made readily available.

"Maintenance is an ongoing thing," House said. "Every year I ask for each principal to make a maintenance request as early as May. Then we go over it and try to have a definite answer of what we're going to do. Sometimes we look at some things and know we can't do them. We just have to do what we can with the budget."

The budget this year is about $75,000, House said. Most of it, $35,000, is going to a new group of high school classrooms.

Other area schools are busy as well.

In Sikeston, along with regular maintenance, installation of new computer tables and carpet is under way at the Vo-Tech School. Most of the major renovations took place there last year.

In Scott City, new softball and baseball fields are under construction.

In Perryville, huge renovations are going on this summer. Assistant Superintendent Rick Francis says that when the whole thing is said and done, the school will have made more than $1 million in improvements.

"We have a Performance Contracting Law," Francis said, "which allows our school district to borrow money and help improve energy savings."

This summer, every bulb and ballast is being changed in the Perryville School District -- almost $318,000 in new lighting, which will eventually pay for itself.

A system to control energy use is also being installed.

"Let's say we have a class that meets on a Saturday morning or a team needs to come into the gym to practice on a weekend," Francis said. "Rather than having to heat our whole high school, we can heat just one room."

The football field is being resodded. Old electric heat classrooms are being changed. Two 40-year-old boilers at the high school are being replaced. The high school is undergoing a $100,000 roofing project. The middle school floors were all mudjacked.

"It's going to be a big summer," Francis said.

But at CJHS, most of this summer's renovations are small, although time-consuming.

"Our job is to take all the furniture out of the classrooms, piece by piece, clean the classroom, get all the gum off, and then put the furniture back in," House said. "Teachers help us do the work. Most of them this summer are working on a paint crew."

"Two years ago, the district came through and put air conditioning in. ... They took out all the old windows and lighting and put new in."

Voelker, who has been with the district for 10 years, is also part of the regular maintenance crew during the regular school year along with Lisa Dodd.

"We just help maintain the building," Voelker says. "We dustmop and wetmop. I work during the school day. We have two crews. Most buildings only have one. I guess I do have quite a few hats here. Some of them are things I have acquired."