DEVELOPMENT
ment had to borrow space at the college’s Fort Pierce campus
for the couple of weeks before schools opened in August to
handle the crowd of parents.
7en people in -erger’s office assign students to the schools
they’ll attend and, in the two weeks before schools open,
about 200 families a day are served.
School district spokeswoman Kerry Padrick says employees
worked hard to cope with the challenges of being located
all over the district. “They instituted creative solutions to
provide the best possible access and customer service to parents,”
she says.
“It was a lot easier for us when we were centrally located,”
-erger says. “I could Must walk to someone’s office to straighten
something out for a parent instead of saying I’d have to
call them back. We don’t like to have parents wait, and they
want to have immediate answers.”
STURDY STRUCTURE
Those problems end this summer when Jerger and the
other 330 administration employees move into a rugged new
$22.8 million administration building on 12 acres west of I-95,
across from St. Lucie West.
The central portion of the new 111,000-square-foot building
can be used as a shelter able to withstand a Category 5 hurricane
with winds of 150 miles an hour and more, school board
member Kathryn Hensley says.
In the event of a hurricane, that area will also become a
command center with full generator-produced electrical
power. “It’ll be a bunker,” Superintendent Wayne Gent told
the school board during a November workshop.
The central area is also where the school board will meet >>
ANTHONY INSWASTY
Workers prepare to utilize materials stored in the parking lot area of the site.
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