Lake Central School Corp. and the town of Schererville have entered into an agreement to make the high school auditorium a rain location for the town’s summer performance by the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra.
“We wanted the high school to become a hub of the community,” Superintendent Larry Veracco said. “If the weather turns sour, we will have them at our place. When you don’t have a place to go when it rains, you have to cancel.”
Veracco said the auditorium can seat 1,100.
The symphony is scheduled to perform Aug. 13 at Redar Park in Schererville.
The next school board meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday.
Meanwhile, the school district is beginning its various improvement projects for the Lake Central School Corp. this spring following the approval of a $3.7 million general obligation bond in March.
“We have a laundry list of stuff,” Veracco said.
The key items include a radio communications tower, a Peifer Elementary School parking lot, repair of a crumbling Kolling Elementary School road, a salt dome and a maintenance barn.
“We are doing a lot of carpet removal,” Veracco said. “When carpet ages, it is a concern of ours, with harboring germs. We are moving to vinyl tile; it is colder but easier to clean, and the germ problem is minimized. We are also putting in a small restroom/ticket booth/concession stand (near the soccer field). We are interested in having bathrooms as a real facility, not a ‘portalette’ or having people going up to the football building. We are also redoing gym floors and bleachers at Watson and Bibich elementary schools. And we are doing the Grimmer (middle school) bleachers.”
“The theme of most of what we are doing is safety,” Veracco said. “We are dealing with aging infrastructure and a couple of things that we just thought it was time to upgrade, like the salt dome and the maintenance building at the transportation center.”
The district will have a salt dome to preserve and protect the salt in place of using a tarp to cover the material. The new radio tower, which permits the school radios to communicate between and within buildings, comes on the heels of the end of a lease with the town.
“We initially helped construct that tower, and we had a 10-year lease. Now the town can use the extra space for its own use. They preferred we get our own. We honored our original agreement, and now we will have our own tower on the southeast side of the school adjacent to our technology center,” Veracco said.
Assistant Superintendent Al Gandalfi recently met with 25 area real estate agents to tour the school and provide them with an overview of the school and its tax rates as it compares to other communities.
“We are proud of the place, and we want to show it off,” said Veracco.
Nancy Coltun Webster is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
