116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
'Kids are learning’ as Taft, Harding navigate closed domes
From band and orchestra in the front lobby to PE in the library, staff are finding space to teach
Oct. 27, 2023 5:00 am, Updated: Oct. 27, 2023 10:56 am
CEDAR RAPIDS — Kara Davenport has a front-row seat from her desk in the attendance office at Taft Middle School to band and orchestra classes happening in the school’s entryway since the building’s dome that houses the performing arts classrooms was closed earlier this month.
Up to 60 students cram into the front entrance with their chairs, instruments and music stands during their class periods. Plywood walls on either side keep them distanced from the two domes under repairs after the deterioration of several support beams.
Although it’s been “overwhelming” with students and staff being displaced from the domes, which also house the building’s gym and cafeteria, Davenport said she has been impressed with how well everyone is adapting.
“I have very much enjoyed having the band and orchestra up here,” said Davenport, who has worked at Taft for 19 years. “I never get to hear them. It’s been a lot of fun.”
On Oct. 11, school officials announced the evacuation and closure of Taft’s east dome after an inspection found it was unstable. Monday, the Cedar Rapids Community School District announced it was closing the second dome at Taft and both domes at Harding Middle School. The two middle schools were constructed in 1965 using the same design that features two domes.
Allyson Kegel, one of two band teachers at Taft, said her initial reaction to the first dome being closed — which she learned about 10 minutes before a band rehearsal — was “disbelief.”
With the second dome closed, Kegel said staff haven’t had time to dwell on the inconvenience. “We’re just figuring out solutions as fast as we can. The entire time we’re trying to figure out what’s our next step,” she said.
There are some distractions to band and orchestra students practicing in the front lobby. Families and visitors sometimes have to cut through the dense crowd of students to get to the front office.
Kegel moved a big rug into the lobby to help deaden the sound in an area of the school not designed for acoustics.
“We’re telling kids to be mindful. They know they need to play a little bit quieter,” Kegel said.
Kegel said the students are doing an “amazing job” showing up every day, being flexible and going with the flow. “I’m super impressed with how well they have been handling everything,” she said.
The closure of the Taft and Harding domes is impacting more than 1,000 sixth through eighth grade students in the Cedar Rapids Community School District. Outside the schools are fences around the domes with signs that read “do not enter.”
The library is becoming a catchall space.
Without a performing arts classroom, the 260 students enrolled in band and orchestra are storing their instruments — the “equivalent of a suitcase” — in the library, Taft Principal Gary Hatfield said.
PE classes also are being held in the library or outside, weather permitting. A double classroom — which could be turned into two single classrooms with a divider — is being remodeled into a temporary PE space with more durable light fixtures.
Lunches at Taft are eaten at about 15 tables set up in hallways and the student lobby — which is a different space from the front entryway. Some students have to eat in their classrooms. With the kitchen closed in one of the domes, food is being prepared at West Willow Elementary School.
“It’s inconvenient,” Hatfield said. “It would be dramatically more inconvenient if we didn’t have kids and parents and staff that cooperated. They adjust pretty quickly. They’re good school citizens, and they do what we ask them to do, and it’s worked out pretty well.”
The closure of the domes also interrupted the middle schools’ boys’ basketball seasons. The Taft team for now is practicing at Maple Grove and West Willow elementary schools beginning at 6:30 a.m. Home games are being hosted at Jefferson and Kennedy high schools and LaSalle Catholic Middle School.
Long term, however, Hatfield said the plan is not sustainable. “This will work for a few months, but this can’t be the plan for the rest of the year, and it won’t be.”
The first priority is to repair the dome with the cafeteria and performing arts classrooms, so students and staff can get back into those spaces as quickly as possible, Hatfield said. There is no timeline yet on the repairs.
The domes will be repaired with funds from the district’s Physical Plant and Equipment Levy, a capital projects fund for the purchase and improvement of grounds, purchase, construction and remodeling of buildings and major equipment purchases, including technology.
Two portable classrooms will be installed at Taft in about three weeks. The classrooms are owned by the district and are currently being used at an elementary school.
Hatfield said it takes awhile to get the portable classrooms up and running because they need to be connected to electricity, the school’s intercom system and other technology and made compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Hatfield said in his 15 years at Taft Middle School, he’s seen routine maintenance done to the dome’s beams. They’ve even been injected with epoxy.
“We’ve seen a slow deterioration of these beams over time. It’s gotten to the point where the treatment they’re getting isn’t keeping up with the needs,” Hatfield said. “It’s long-term rot.”
While the impact of closing the domes is “major,” the goal has been to make it feel as minor as possible for the kids, Hatfield said.
“I had a parent email me and say they were surprised at how minimally impacted their kid had been. That’s what we strive for,” Hatfield said. “We’re functioning fairly normal. All of our classes are happening. Kids are learning and teachers are teaching.”
Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com
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