About Me
I am a Senior at Englewood high school. I've been part of broadcast journalism and yearbook for one year. I learned how to take pictures and edit video's at a efficient rate, I also learned how to do the audio for a news cast. I'm also apart of Quill & Scroll.
Honors and Awards
Colorado Student Media Association
In-depth Special Report 2022
News Feature- 2022 2nd Place
Play by play 2022-2023
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Students at schools in Englewood including the high school got an update on the water quality issue The Pirateer has been following for a few months.
Senior Haliegh Worthy is an athlete so needs good water, “I bring my own water from home, like in bottles. I put bottled water into my water bottle.”
She brings water from home because she doesn’t like the taste of the water from the fountains at EHS, “Rocky, minerals, a lot of minerals, pool water. Oh, I work at a pool, definitely pool water. It makes me nauseous to think about it.”
Hearing word that the water fountains will soon have filters is exciting, “Oh, that would be really nice. It would save me a lot of money because the water here is absolutely disgusting. Yeah, they should add the filter. I feel like it’ll benefit a lot of kids.”
The deputy superintendent, Joanna Polzin read the recent article in the September news magazine that mentioned the students’ concerns about the taste and smell of the water coming out of the drinking fountains. Polzin reached out to Ariel Ramos, the Supervisor Of Operations and Maintenance for Englewood Public Schools.
Ramos said the first step is to get bids, “We have reached out to multiple plumbing companies to give us quotes and solutions to get filters on all fountains. This is also going to take into account some areas in the building where there are sinks.” Ramos says there was a new Bill that was passed to test for Lead in the water at schools.
House Bill 22-1358 was passed May 9, 2022, stating all water in Colorado schools should be tested for lead and districts have until May 2023 or November 30, 2024, for middle schools, to complete the tests. The act requires a state-certified lab to measure the lead content from each water source. The results will be sent to the water quality control commission which will post the results on its public website within 30 days of receiving them. According to the bill on the Colorado General Assembly website, “If the results of a test of a drinking water source show that water from the drinking water source contains lead in an amount of 5 parts per billion or more, a child care center, family child care home, or P-8 school must notify all employees and parents and guardians of students, discontinue use of the drinking water source, and take specific measures to address and remediate the drinking water source.”
Ramos says the testing for water in elementary schools and preschools is first on the list and should be complete end of this year. Secondary schools are slated to be tested next year, “But we are working with the state and several partners to make sure we test and then meet all needs to mitigate any issues that may come up.”
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Students Josue Lopez Diego, Dane Quintana, and Christian Almanza are part of the group that doesn’t have a ride most of the time. “Sometimes we have a ride there, but most of the time we don’t have a bus back so we have to carpool with teammates and stuff like that,” Diego said. Senior Dane Quintana agrees with Diego, “A lot of the time we’ll have a bus up there (to away games) but no bus back to the school depending on the sport.”
Christian Almanza, another student athlete at Englewood High School, says there were only buses for the games that were really far away this season. Almanza also thinks it’s important for everyone to have transportation to their games so that no one gets stuck at the school.
“I think it’s better if we travel together on the bus because it brings us together as a team and when people have to get their own ride, not everyone gets there at the same time. Quintana said the ride can be lonely without teammates, “It’s a lot better riding on the buses as teammates because we feel together as a team rather than being isolated from one another.” Quintana says athletes grow close to the bus drivers “A lot of the time it’s the same bus driver because we don’t hire many new ones, so they’re pretty cool and we’re even pretty close to them.”
One major concern is students driving other students. Often these young drivers have only had their license for a year or two, “It is pretty scary riding with someone that I know because they’re still new drivers and are getting used to being on the road.”
According to Kimberly DeHaven, the Director of Transportation for Englewood Schools, it has been a struggle trying to find new bus drivers for the district as there has been no new applicants since December of last year.
“During the week if a game is located in the metro area we can offer a drop only, which means we can drop the team off at the game site, but it could mean dropping the team off a few hours before the game starts, in order to get the bus back in Englewood to drive afternoon routes.”, DeHaven said, as well as, “The other option teams have is to be transported following afternoon routes, which means leaving Englewood around 4:15-4:30 PM and playing a later game,” said DeHaven in an email to the Pirateer.
DeHaven knows the importance of student athletes having transportation to and from games, “The Transportation department only has one licensed substitute bus driver at this time. This substitute drives all teams to all of the out of metro area games.” This demonstrates the urgency of the shortage of bus drivers in our district, “This is consistent with all districts in order to prioritize afternoon routes first, athletics second, until we are fully staffed.”
DeHaven also gives a list of reasons as to why it has been difficult to find bus drivers as of recent. In her email to the Pirateer, she outlined the needs and requirements for drivers:
Driver licensing requirements – CDL (Commercial Drivers License)
Driving large vehicles is difficult
Driving school buses is rigid/hours inflexible “on call” status from 6:00 AM until 4:30 PM Monday through Friday.
Drivers can not pass the DOT physical as outlined by the Federal government.
Intimidated by background check/drug screening
Low pay in some areas and higher pay in other areas, so applicants have options based on pay.
Responsibility for children can be stressful to a person, especially driving up to 77 passengers with no other adult on the bus.
Retirement surge as Baby Boomers leave the workforce {The average school bus driver age is 57 years old.}
The new ELDT training is a minimum of 6-8 weeks of training and most new drivers do not finish the training.
DeHaven said the other option teams have is to be transported following afternoon routes, which means leaving Englewood around 4:15-4:30 PM and playing a later game. Student athletes say that pushes home and homework time into the late evening.
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On October 10, 2023, the workers arrived at 7:15 to get started with the project that had been one year in the making.
You will also notice the posters hanging with the new filters above the fountains. They are there to educate students about the cost and importance of the new addition.
We learned that the plumbers are highly qualified and well-educated in their craft. The workers have a combined 20 years of experience. They said they attended Plumbers Local 3, taking classes twice a week, while working full time. The education from Plumbers Local 3 in Aurora is free and they plumbers make over 6-figures in salary. Click on the link above to learn more about the school.
The water coming out of the new filters is ice-cold and clear. It also has a few bubbles that may indicate its effectiveness.
This is the first set of three installations that will take place over the course of the next five years.
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“Kinda like there is something in it, like musty,” said freshman Ophelia Durgin, when interviewed about the water fountains on the Englewood High School campus a year ago.
Now, we have an update that will soon deliver fresh, filtered water to students.
It was September of 2022 when The Pirateer brought attention to the unfiltered water coming from many of the fountains around the school. We learned several things at that time. First, the fountains around the TEC campus were installed when the schools were rebuilt nearly ten years ago and the actual filter system was not included in many of the installs, despite the green light that may look like the water is being filtered into your bottles. Second, the water for Englewood originates in the mountains. You may assume that it is pure, but it goes through a water delivery system of pipes that are more than 70 years old. According to the city, the taste and odor can worsen as pipes get older.
On the city side, two huge projects are in the works that will replace old pipes and refresh our water system. They are called the Big Dry Creek Diversion Project and the Flow it Forward Project. You can learn more about these programs here.
The water issue at the TEC campus caught the attention of the superintendent who recently stopped by The Pirateer classroom to give a highly anticipated update. We have now learned filters are just weeks away.
Joanna Polzin was accompanied by Ariel Ramos, the Operations and Maintenance Director for Englewood Public School District. When the initial story came out last year, Polzin wanted to get started right away on finding a solution, but due to budget issues and numerous district projects, a solution was postponed.
Superintendent Joanna Polzin led the charge to fix the issue surrounding the non-filtered water after it was brought to her attention by the staff of The Pirateer. Standing by one set of fountains that will get a new filter are Polzin and Ariel Ramos, the Operations and Maintenance Director for Englewood Public School District. Ramos spent time researching plumbing companies and getting bids.
(Michael Marquis)
To move the water filter project forward, Ramos, who had to search for funding and get bids, had a lot on his plate. “He oversaw the construction of all four elementary schools, the early childhood center at Maddox, as well as the renovation at the Roscoe Davison Administration building,” said Polzin.
“I was here through all the construction, from the old building into the new building. The water-filtered fountains don’t have filters and I know why that process didn’t happen during construction. The bottle fillers were kind of a new thing at that time; the plumbers had a very difficult time getting those to fit inside the existing fountains that were chosen during the project of this build,” said Ramos.
Ramos was the head facility manager for EHS when it opened. When he started working here, he noticed the water issue. “It doesn’t taste good. I remember the first time that I started here back in 2014, and I drank out of one of the fountains, and I was like, Oh my goodness, no, I cannot drink out of this fountain every day.”
To fix the issue and bring clean, filtered water to students and staff, Ramos says, it is necessary to mount all these filters on the outside of the fountains or next to the fountains. “These are going to be out where the kids can touch them, they can be vandalized.”
Summary
This was my first year in broadcast journalism and I learned how to use the media in a positive way. Our job was to share sport update's and things going on in the school. Broadcast journalism provided students a chance to be heard by teachers and the school board. In a time when there is so much negative news, we learned you need to keep personal emotion out of a story, how to spot quality news and good reporting.