Bloom District High Schools Get Lifted

Donning a three-quarter length coat and a proud smile, Glen Giannetti stepped onto the shiny new elevator at Bloom High School.

Finally, a bit of good news.

A school district that has seen plenty of criticism over the years for its handling of funds, unveiled tangible evidence last week that at least some of that dough is being spent on the students. Giannetti said the new lifts at Bloom and Bloom Trail were a long time coming.

"The elevators had been a problem at this school for 20 or 25 years," Giannetti said with a sigh. "The school is 150 years old. Those were the original elevators. We could no longer find the parts for the elevators. It was very difficult keeping track of the keys, due to the amount of keys that were given out over the years."

And, according to Giannetti that wasn't even the biggest problem with the old elevators.

"Most importantly, they weren’t ADA [American Disabilities Act compliant], and they had to be," Giannetti added. "We have several kids in these schools with severe disabilities, from wheelchairs to crutches to various things."

The previous elevators were so bad, the school had to turn away some students with disabilities, according to Bloom principal Rhona Israel.

"In the past, we weren’t able to accommodate students that were wheelchair bound in the building," Israel explained. "So that’s pretty exciting that they will actually have the opportunity to go to their home school."

New elevators have been on the districts to-do list for several years and, according to Giannetti, it took about three years just to come up with the funding and another year and a half before they were finally installed. But now it's go time.

"We’ve got approval from the fire department and the county to start running them and I’m just very happy that they’re installed," Giannetti said, and the beaming superintendent isn't the only one anxious to hop on the new vertical rides.

"Even students that don’t need to ride it are quite excited, and a lot of them think that they will have unlimited access," Israel said. "They will not. It will be access restricted for only students, facility and also parents and visitors who actually need to have access to it."