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Community invited to use new high school gyms

JANESVILLE — Janesvillians soon will have a new place to burn calories, tone muscles and ward of osteoporosis during the winter.

Janesville School District residents may start using the tracks in those huge new gymnasiums at Craig and Parker high schools starting Monday, Nov. 2.

Residents may run or walk on the tracks on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings before school begins, when school is in session, but only during winter months.

Community use of the gyms was promised in the run-up to the referendum two years ago, when voters gave the school district permission to borrow $70.8 million to expand and renovate the two schools. The construction projects were completed this summer.

The 150-meter tracks circle the gyms, which have the feel of airplane hangars. Each features a rubber-like surface.

Steve Sperry, district director of administrative and human services, said both schools are planning to allow residents to use the big, new weight rooms as well. But there’s a hang-up: They need to find someone knowledgeable about the equipment to supervise the rooms so no one gets hurt, Sperry said.

“That’s something that we had talked about and that needs to take place,” Sperry said. “I just don’t think that’s going to happen on Nov. 2.”

While the gyms will be open to district residents, no one will check identifications at either school, said Parker Principal Steve Schroeder.

“We will monitor this, and if problems start to happen, we will develop a plan to take care of any issues,” Schroeder said in an e-mail. “I am not foreseeing anything, but issues such as misuse of the facility, not staying in the four-station gym or something of that nature we will need to evaluate as they arise. This is a new venture for us, and we are looking at it to be positive all the way around.”

“Four station” refers to four sections into which the gyms can be divided by curtains, allowing multiple uses for basketball games or physical education classes. There’s also a curtain that can separate the center of the gyms from the track.

The term “field house” has popped up in casual conversation at the schools and around town. Most high schools with similar structures call them field houses.

But district officials say the gyms are not the same as university field houses, and they use the term “four-station gym.”

One hundred fifty meters, by the way, is 492 feet. A mile is 5,280 feet, so 10.73 laps around the gym equal a mile.

For the metric minded, about 10.6 laps equals 1,600 meters.