The Sto-Rox school board either can fix the concrete steps leading to the high school's auditorium or fix the stage inside the auditorium -- but it can't do both.

After weighing its options at a workshop meeting last night, the board members decided to vote next week on putting the concrete work out for bid, using $60,000 originally set aside for the stage.

"It's a safety hazard," board President Kevin Kochirka said. "If somebody got hurt there we could end up with a legal issue on our hands."

The trouble is that there are safety issues associated with the stage, too. The mechanisms holding curtains and backdrops is in such poor shape that the district chained all the control ropes together so no one could try to operate them.

The situation has caused several to be cancelled, but board member Luanne Schipani said the grand march for the prom in May, if not held, would be the final blow.

"That's a big deal to these kids," she said.

Superintendent Fran Serenka said she would check with the consultants who inspected the stage to see if it would be safe to let the march go on.

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