Jordan Middle School gets jump-start
It was a brisk spring morning, a Saturday. A crew made up of mostly
adults had been asked to give up their precious nonworking time for a
worthy cause. They were going to give Jordan Middle School a quick
face-lift. It wasn’t a cure, just a bandage, really. The facilities
were in need of some long-overdue repairs and upgrades. But thanks to
a donation of paint and materials, the group of more than 100 people
picked up brushes and rollers and began to paint the hallways and
restrooms. It was a long day, but in the end, the once- drab halls
looked brighter and cleaner, temporarily masking the need for deeper
and more extensive work to be done.
This was not a unique situation; in fact, it was happening all
over Burbank. Volunteers with paint brushes in hand were doing what
they could to give our schools a much-needed face-lift as a stop-gap
measure until the school district could do cost analysis and budgets
for the scope of work necessary to modernize our schools. In an
effort to help the Burbank Unified School District begin the process,
the Burbank City Council gave the schools a generous $23-million
gift. Jordan Middle School was one of the first schools selected to
benefit from this donation.
With funding in place and plans approved, the work began. There
was a lot to be done and slowly, as the community watched, the
transformation began to take place. Lockers were cleaned and fixed,
and walls were painted. Classrooms were rewired for the age of
technology. Furniture was replaced and new floors were put in. As the
work progressed, the foundation for the general obligation bond was
laid. The work on Jordan continued. After each phase, opportunities
to see the completed work were given to public officials and the rest
of the community. The bond passed, partially due to the way the
public saw how Jordan was progressing. It is interesting to note that
Jordan’s modernization has used no bond funds to date, just part of
the city’s donation and some FEMA money secured by the district.
At a recent holiday event, I was speaking to a young man who was a
lifelong Burbank resident. He went to Jordan about 20 years ago. He
told me he had been proud to attend there, and his junior high days
helped to give him the foundation he needed to be successful. He just
couldn’t believe the difference the modernization had made in the
classrooms. His own daughter attends Jordan now, and he is very
pleased with the academic excellence as well as the quality of the
physical plant.
“Burbank just does what it’s always done,” he said. “They’ve kept
it a great place to live and raise your kids. We get nothing but the
best.”
DAVID NOS
Member, Community
Oversight Committee