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By Ashley Wu
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Apr. 30, 2009 |
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The weight room remains closed to students after the school began remodeling during the week of March 30.
Since then, the school’s custodians resurfaced the weight room floor, professionals put up a mirror from A & J Mirrors on the entire wall alongside the boys’ locker room and athletics department head Robert Ray repainted the walls Cardinal Red. The school plans to update old and unsafe equipment with new equipment bought from Life Fitness in order to help the students pass the mandated Physical Fitness test.
This project was possible because the school received a substantial amount of money this year from Prop. H, a measure passed in 2005 to support sports, libraries, arts and music. Michelle Zapata, the head of Physical Education in the San Francisco Unified School District, called Lowell P.E. department head and teacher Sascha Taylor-Ray to ask if the school wanted a new weight room. “I jumped on the opportunity to get a new weight room,” Taylor-Ray said. “We need a new track, but we don’t have enough money for that, we need a new gym. But we don’t have enough money for that either, so we chose to spend the money on something we could utilize the money for.”
Some students have said they approve of the remodeling of the weight room. “It’s a step up because it shows that the school is paying more attention to sports,” freshman Caroline Chan said.
Many agreed that there was a need for new equipment. “We needed it since everything in the weight room was getting crusty,” sophomore Oriana Chiu said.
Such a big project takes time, but some students and teachers said they have not found the remodeling of the weight room inconvenient. “It doesn’t effect me much, but I’m just waiting for the weight room to reopen,” sophomore weight training student Taiyo Onoda said.
Teachers who were originally scheduled to instruct class in the weight room have also been cooperative by agreeing to teach other sports units such as team handball, Ultimate Frisbee and basketball, according to Taylor-Ray. “It’s kind of like bite the bullet right now and get a new weight room later,” she said.
The weight training class has been “getting creative” Taylor-Ray said. “We’ve done some running on the track, played tennis, ultimate Frisbee and other sports, and the students have been very flexible.”
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