Daily Bulletin
By Monica Rodriguez
Sep 14, 2009
POMONA - For years, students and faculty assigned to classrooms in the original portion of Lincoln Elementary School slogged through the start of the academic year in sweltering heat.
On Monday morning students, parents, teachers and district residents gathered in the school auditorium to celebrate the installation of air conditioning during the summer.
"We're cool in school!" shouted students at the first of two assemblies.
The campus consists of the original school building, constructed in 1936, and newer portable structures, said Richard Martinez, interim superintendent of the Pomona Unified School District.
Until this summer the school, the oldest in the district, had no air conditioning.
With it in place, it's possible to gather in the school auditorium again after years of holding assemblies outdoors, said Principal Michele Bauer.
"Usually after five or 10 minutes (in the auditorium) it started to get stuffy and a little musty," Bauer said after the assemblies.
The air conditioning project was made possible with funding from Measure PS. The voter-approved bond measure was passed in November 2008 through the joint efforts of various groups.
The $235 million bond will pay for modernization of campuses and to make improvements needed to accommodate new academic programs.
About $1.2 million in bond measure funds paid for Lincoln's air conditioning, Bauer said as she and Rev. Julie Roberts-Fronk explained to students the concept of a bond measure.
Fronk is a pastor at First Christian Church and a leader with the Pomona/Inland Valley Cluster of One LA, a grassroots organization that worked in support of the bond measure.
Because parents and other Pomona voters agreed to increase taxes, the money could be raised for such a project, Roberts-Fronk said.
"Your parents said, `We want to give dollars to help our children learn,"' she told students.
As part of the assembly, a group of students performed a skit depicting life before and after air conditioning.
"It's too hot. I can't read," said one boy while another held up a sign with a thermometer registering more than 100 degrees.
"My head hurts. I can'
t read," said another boy.
In the next scene a little girl appears.
"Hi! I'm here to tell you all the classes have air conditioning now," she said, drawing cheers from the students on stage.
Guadalupe Gallegos, one of a group of parents who was recognized for their commitment and efforts to bringing air conditioning to the school, said she saw how the heat affected students, prompting her to find a solution to the problem.
Gallegos and other parents worked with One LA putting in countless hours lobbying school board members for air conditioning and later campaigning for Measure PS.
"Seeing the air conditioning (operating) motivates us as parents," she said in Spanish, adding it prompts them to pursue other projects and "work for the school and the education of our children."