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A look inside the operation keeping Lodi schools stocked [Lodi News-Sentinel, Calif. :: ](Lodi News-Sentinel (CA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) July 24--Inside a large, nondescript building behind the James Areida Educational Support Center in Lodi lies a 50,000-square-foot Willy Wonka-esque building full of wonders, with sights such as taxidermied cranes, stacks of toilet paper and a laser etching machine. It is the center of all logistics activity in Lodi Unified School District, where a tireless crew of individuals works to make sure that each student has a desk, a chair and books to read. As summer vacation draws to a close, warehouse employees are making a final push to prepare school sites for the new year, shipping out thousands of student textbooks and food service supplies such as foam trays and canned fruit, as well as delivering mail. "One of the most interesting things about our job is that people think we get summers off. This is our busiest season of the year," said Cricket Koch, director of the purchasing and warehouse departments for Lodi Unified. Inside is a flurry of activity, with fork lift drivers moving pallets of textbooks to be labeled with barcodes before being sent out to schools in large white delivery trucks. The warehouse has processed more than 2,000 textbook purchase orders since April. In order to meet Common Core State Standards this year, the warehouse has seen an influx of orders -- filling the warehouse floor at some points, according to Dale Grenie, warehouse supervisor. "The math (textbook) adoption started in May. With each site there's so much that we need to send them. We have a history (textbook) adoption, but it's been delayed by the publisher," Grenie said. The timing of when the obsolete textbooks will be removed from schools hasn't yet been decided. Grenie said that the building could easily be filled completely if they were to take all the books back from the schools at once. Unused textbooks are either sold back to the publisher, held for reuse or recycled. All this is done with an average staff of three people during the school year, and temporary help hired for the summer. Venturing past the textbooks, one can find a menagerie of oddities on a set of wooden shelves, such as a set of taxidermied animals, an inflatable star lab and scientific models of ears and eyes. Need a crying baby doll for health class or a classroom set of "Summer of the Monkeys" books? They're here. These are the materials teachers can select from an online catalogue to use in their classrooms. On the other side of the instructional materials storage is space for football helmets and pads, toilet paper, shrink-wrapped desks, brooms and trash cans. "I just got a call from Bear Creek (High School) that they have two unexpected new classes. We have to send them 201 new desks," Koch said, referring to the shelves and boxes of furniture. Other interesting features of the warehouse include an industrial refrigerator and freezer for storing food service supplies, a testing cage where district testing materials are kept under lock and key, and a technology department where Lodi Unified's new Chromebooks are processed and etched with the district's logo. The warehouse is also where Lodi Unified stores personnel records, which they must keep forever. In the future, Koch hopes that these records, among several others kept in the warehouse, can be digitized. Warehouse employees will soon discuss a pilot program with the Food Services Department to reduce the paperwork clutter and enter the digital age. "We would like to begin the pilot as soon as possible," she said. Many different departments rely on the warehouse as a combination print office, post office, supply store and recycling center. Electronic waste -- like broken iMacs, VCRs and TVs -- is gathered in baskets. With all that work, Koch said, it's hard to be bored and something new is happening every day. But what makes it worth it for warehouse employees is the students. Koch remembered one instance when she received appreciation letters from students at Live Oak Elementary School after the warehouse delivered new desks to replace aging ones at the school. "The best thing is when you get to the school site and see the kids. Even though we work behind the scenes, when it gets down to it, it's all about the kids. That's how you get the most out of your job," Grenie said. Contact reporter Christina Cornejo at [email protected]. ___ (c)2014 the Lodi News-Sentinel (Lodi, Calif.) Visit the Lodi News-Sentinel (Lodi, Calif.) at www.lodinews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |