Update on Lunchroom Seating Area Renovation

Englewood Elementary Families, Faculty, and Staff,

While we go through the process of renovating our lunchroom seating area, we plan to keep you updated on our progress.

As we let you know last week, a moisture issue was discovered in our lunchroom seating area, just before the start of the school year. While the timing is inconvenient, we must address this problem fully and immediately, with a complete renovation to this part of our lunchroom.  

Our child nutrition staff is still able to prepare meals in the Englewood kitchen. On Thursday and Friday, students ate grab-and-go style meals in their classrooms. As of today, we have a construction breezeway in place, which allows students access to the kitchen to pick up their meals, without walking through the lunchroom seating area. While the lunchroom seating area renovation is underway, students will eat meals in their classrooms. We expect the renovation to take several months. Also, please visit this link for an updated August breakfast and lunch menu for Englewood. Our child nutrition team has made adjustments to the menu, to select foods that will be easier for students to carry to their classrooms.  

The moisture issues in the seating area of the lunchroom are contained to that area of the school. The lunchroom seating area has a separate heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system, so there is no air circulating from the lunchroom to the rest of the school. Tests, conducted by an outside agency, confirmed that the kitchen and other areas of the school were not affected by the moisture. For additional safety, we have worked with an environmental safety company to encapsulate the area of concern, to ensure that there is no air circulating outside of it while it is being renovated. We must also follow strict state and federal guidelines pertaining to this situation.

We appreciate the patience of our Englewood students, families, faculty, and staff, in this change from our normal breakfast and lunch procedures. While the timing of this project is certainly unexpected, it is important that we quickly correct this issue with our building.

Sincerely,

Dr. Tameka Rice

Principal, Englewood Elementary

Dr. Keri C. Johnson

Superintendent, Tuscaloosa County School System