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Partnership Together Update
Q:The elementary school buildings are
almost complete.The next step is equip-
ping the buildings. You have been pains-
takingly selecting the needed furniture.
There is a huge choice out there.What
specifications are you looking for?
As with every decision made at IC, the
first priority is the health and safety of the
students. You wouldn’t believe what the cor-
ner of a pointed table can do to a student’s
face if someone unfortunately falls right
on the point. So, the first thing we look
for are student tables and desks that have
rounded and covered edges. Seating needs
to be ergonomically sound. All the furniture
needs to be appealing in color and design
and reasonably priced. I know that’s a tall
order, but we did identify several companies
in the United States that fit the bill. Since
the market in the USA is so large, these
companies have furniture that is very attrac-
tively priced and much cheaper than what is
found in Lebanon and Europe. The health
and safety standards are excellent as well.
In addition to the regular classrooms, we
have a number of special areas that will be
furnished. The theater requires special seat-
ing and we’re using a company that special-
izes in theater seating. The chairs will be at-
tractive and comfortable. The music rooms
and art rooms also require special furniture.
We used an architect who specializes in
school furniture to help with the selec-
tions of the equipment for offices, theater,
outdoor play areas and gymnasiums. He
met with me and the teachers from these
areas and showed us catalogs and samples
of products for our selection. I think we
did an excellent job and this will be evident
when we start to use the building.
Q: Can you tell us about the logistics of
the move. It’s a huge task to move 750
students into the new buildings. How do
you plan to do that?
Well, I have had the “pleasure” of making
some similar moves in other schools that I
have worked in before. The most compli-
cated is setting up the new classrooms. The
new furniture will be installed later this
fall. The teachers will have to unpack their
books and materials and arrange everything
in the classrooms prior to the students
coming into the building. This is a time
consuming task and we had to schedule
an extra week of vacation for the students
in order to have the time to complete this
job. Also, we have to remember that this
is a new building for our faculty. We need
to have time to orient them to the new
building so that they, in turn, can show the
students where they need to go. Of course,
the first think that we will review with the
teachers is the Emergency Evacuation Plan
so that they can get their students out of
the building safely.
But, let me go back to the first part of
the move. We will be leaving Reynold’s
Hall which is a very big building stuffed
with thousands of books, teaching sup-
plies, active boards, laptop carts, laptops,
desktop computers, medical supplies, files,
etc. There’s a lot in that building! Most
of it will be boxed up the week before the
Christmas holiday begins. Each box will
be labeled with the new room number. All
the “stuff ” will be moved into the correct
place in the new building over the holiday.
Then the unpacking begins! Fortunately,
we will have new student desks, teacher
desks, office desks, file cabinets, etc. already
placed in the new building so we don’t have
to move that equipment.
Q: Ain Aar has a master plan.What are
those plans and when will the project start?
The development of Ain Aar will really
be exciting! We have just completed the
master plan for Ain Aar and there are some
really exciting plans for what we will do
over
Issue #4 | October 2012
Q
&
A
with
IC’s President
John Johnson