Work is, hopefully, not done at Miller
As teachers at Joaquin Miller Elementary School, we were interested
in Henry Hunt’s Jan. 8 letter to the editor. We agree with Hunt that
Miller Elementary is a distinguished school, filled with children,
teachers, staff, volunteers and parents working together to further
the growth of our students in all ways.
Yes, we love Miller Elementary, but we also think the community
should know about the school’s construction problems. Much of the
building constructed in 1999 has already had many repairs, including
multiple leaks in the roofing and entire hallways of floor tile that
have come unglued and been replaced. Most recently, large sections of
tiling on the roof have blown off.
Hunt stated the remodeling and construction are complete, and that
the bond money was “well spent, and the project has come in under
budget.” We can only hope construction is not done, because our
school library is not in service. Moreover, it might be easier for a
builder to come in under budget when items such as thousands of
dollars in carpeting for the school’s library are paid for by the
school-site fund and not out of the bond money, as promised. These
and other issues are affecting students negatively and cause us to
wonder if the district could have spent the money so the
construction could be done within budget and done well.
We are pleased that progress has been made in the remodeling of
our school. We can only hope that in the future, the district will be
as eager to improve the funding of instruction and support services
provided within the school as they have been in beautifying the
outside of the site.
JASON RAGLE
Fourth-grade teacher,
Miller Elementary
DANA RAGLE
Fourth- and fifth-grade
teacher, Miller Elementary