RBHS set to finish paint job mid-summer
May 24, 2022
RBHS began the process of painting the interior of the building March 7, 2022. The project is estimated to end sometime in June, after the current school year has ended, but before the 2022-2023 school year begins.
Columbia Public Schools (CPS) tries to paint the interior of RBHS every five years. Assistant Principal Jacob Adams said it ends up being every six or seven years because of the administrative struggles the project poses.
“[RBHS administration has] had a couple of struggles,” Adams said. “The biggest one was scheduling originally, because we were scheduled to be started about two months sooner. That was a challenge because we had [all of Rock Bridge] ready, and they knew it was happening, so we had to just wait and wait for the painters to be ready.”
Adams also said he spent a good portion of his winter break scheduling each of the painters so they could finish the project on time. This process also included finding a place where teachers could temporarily reorient their classrooms while theirs was in the middle of painting.
It only takes a day or two for the painters to paint a classroom, meaning that at least one teacher is displaced to room 331 each day. Precalculus and AP Statistics teacher Kevin Taylor has a recently painted classroom in the basement and went through a temporary relocation.
“It was a bit inconvenient because there was no smartboard in [room 331],” Taylor said. “As I needed to change slides, I had to keep walking back to the computer at the back of the room and then move forward. But I also knew it was just one day and that I just needed to be a team player.”
While teachers have experienced the struggles of uprooting the classroom, students, too, face difficulty. Sophomore Phillip Fritschi said he and a friend spent a while wandering around before they could locate room 331, and by the time they had, the class had already started. Fritschi also noted that while it was inconvenient, the painting successfully cleaned up the school.
“On the walls, there were lots of places where there were scrape marks, and all the paint was scraped off,” Fritschi said. “There were places where you could see the drywall and stuff like that and places where it was discolored. It just needed to be redone, and now it looks a lot cleaner.”
RBHS administration resolved to have the school painted a different hue from what it was before, taking on a more gray-white tone than a yellow-white one. The color helps keep the school looking clean, and Adams said it works especially well with the school’s fluorescent lighting.
“The building has been added onto so many times and has so many different textures,” Adams said. “So I think [the new paint] kind of unifies it a little bit more because we do have things in the same colors. In all the classrooms, we have the same colors, and in all the hallways, we have the same colors. [The rooms and hallways] are different, but they give the building a little bit more continuity.”
What do you think of the new colors? Let us know in the comments below.
