MAPLEWOOD, NJ — The elevator at Columbia High School will soon be in service, after being in need of repairs for an extended period of time. The elevator, which serves 2,000 students in the three-floor CHS, is now awaiting state inspection before beginning operations again, according to Suzanne Turner, the district’s director of strategic communications.
“In the meantime, most classes and services are accessible for students at their usual locations,” Turner said in an email to the News-Record on March 23. “The cafeteria, first and second floors are all accessible by wheelchair, since each has a ground-level entry which is flat to the outside street.”
If a student who needs to use the elevator had a class on the third floor of CHS, the school relocated the class to accommodate them, Turner said.
According to Turner in a phone interview on March 26, the inspection of the elevator was tentatively scheduled for the same day, though she was unable to say whether or not it had taken place. Requests for confirmation as well as queries as to for how long the elevator was not in operation were not answered by press time.
“If they need the elevator and have to go through … in different ways, they were given a pass for getting to class late,” Turner said. “For example, if a student had a class on the second floor they would have had to go out the front door and around to Academy Street to the entrance there. They would be late for class, but not penalized for that.”
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