Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. holiday so I have a short week. One of the great mysteries at Rangeview is
the white dots on the walls on the first floor. Most people go through their entire 4 years as a student and don’t know they are even there. Many teachers that have been at Rangeview for many years don’t know they are there. Some have noticed but I suspect very very few know the purpose. I am now about to reveal a couple of secrets that are an important part of our history. When I started at Rangeview many years ago, there was a crack that ran the entire length of the commons from north to south. If you go into the commons today you will see a metal strip that covers that crack. The history of land for schools is codified into the Colorado laws. It states that developers have to donate a certain percentage of land for schools when they are developing large portions of land. The law does not say that the land has to be prime or even very useable. As a result, developers don’t normally give the best land for schools and often schools suffer from trying to build on land not suited for them. Rangeview is in the same boat. The land along “Rattlesnake Hill” has a lot of issues that caused a lot of creativity. The school district agreed to build the school thicker and more stable than was normally required. This is very evident if you try to get a cell signal in much of the building. This concession came with a few requirements. Because the land was difficult to build on and would likely have issues Rangeview agreed to regular inspections and measurements. We now come back to the white dots and the accompanying nail in the concrete very close. If you look closely at the dot, you will find a number. At regular intervals, APS is required to run GPS coordinates on these locations to determine how much the building has moved. If you happen to be at Rangeview look along the base of the walls on the first floor and just guess how much closer we are to Wendy’s at the corner of Buckley and Iliff. Stay tuned for the next few days to hear more stories of the building.
