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West Valley loses power, students sent home
School to be open on Wednesday
More Happy Valley News School was let out early at West Valley High School due to a power outage Tuesday. PG&E officials said that the downed power lines at Lower Gas Point Road and Gas Point School Road knocked out the power to 683 Cottonwood PG&E customers including the school at 10:11 a.m. Tuesday morning. The downed lines also caused a small spot fire.
Since PG&E indicated that the outage would be lengthly, the buses were ordered to return to the school to pick up the students, Principal Karl Stemmler said. As luck would have it, power returned as the students were loading onto the buses, but they were sent home anyway. The buses had already been ordered, and some students had already left campus Stemmler said.
An automated phone message was sent to parents regarding the closing. Another phone message will be sent to notify parents that school would be in session again on Wednesday.
Without power, Stemmler said the septic pumps could not support the 1000 people on the West Valley campus for long. The students were not disappointed in going home early, but not nearly as happy had the half-day come in March.
PG&E restored power for 622 customers as of 11:20 a.m. About 60 customers remain without power.
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Posted by cottonwoodparents on August 20, 2008 at 9:51 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Well did you here what happened at the Cottonwood Union School District (K-8) board meeting last night?
I attended the board meeting tonight 8/19/08 and was horrified by the things that I discovered.
1. It was brought to the publics attention that because of the aide cuts there is a lack of supervision on the playground at East Cottonwood. There is 1 aide to 40+ children. 3 aides total are on the playground at recess.
2. The aide times at both North Cottonwood and East Cottonwood have all been reduced, some by half!
"K" has been reduced from 3.5 hours to 1.5 hours and First grade has been reduced from 2 hours to 1.5 hours. There have been reductions at North Cottonwood as well. Last year North Cottonwood had a room for kids to go and finish homework etc. with help and support from an aide. This year that aide has to do playground duty and the kids really miss this "study hall."
3. The library's at both North Cottonwood and East Cottonwood are no longer open 5 days a week!
North Cottonwood is closed on Wednesday's and East Cottonwood is closed on Tuesday's, Thursday's and Friday afternoons.
4. There is also 1 less janitor this year so the classrooms are being cleaned every other day now instead of everyday!
This is very disturbing to me, with colds, flu and staph infections being widespread in elementary schools. Especially Staph in our district!!!
5. There are now 2 less aides in the Reading Room at East Cottonwood school, so the reading room will no be offered to "K" students this year. It was brought up that this program helped several children who started the year at a high risk for retention actually be successful and be able to go on to first grade. This is a tremendous loss for these children! The sooner they get the help they need the more successful they will be.
6. It was also brought up that the SDC class lost one of its aides. Because of this several children have been mainstreamed and may not be getting all of the help that they need to be successful.
7. North Cottonwood has gotten the funding and approval for a 30 computer, computer lab. The location is already wired and ready to go, and the district is waiting on the cabinets to be installed and the rest of the computers to arrive. Mr. Baldwin the computer tech says that this process will take probably till about the end of October. How long does it take to hook up 30 very basic computers and install some cabinets around the room?
(2 months?) How about in a weekend!!!
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