AMHERST - Do you want to see the vibrating floor? asked Alisa Brewer.

Members of the Amherst School Committee, touring Crocker Farm Elementary School, had just welcomed a latecomer to their group. Brewer pulled the visitor into the computer lab, marched her to a corner and let her listen to the roar of shaking metal.

Brewer then pointed to a chair in front of a computer.

''Can you imagine sitting here to do your work?'' she asked.

As it turned out, the vibration - caused by a lose bearing in a motor on the roof - was scheduled to be fixed over the Christmas break.

Still, School Committee members hope that taking in such sights and sounds at the elementary schools will give them things to remember as they start on the current school budget process.

However, with an already tight budget, and the Amherst Finance Committee pushing to limit spending increases to 2.7 percent, not all the problems the committee saw in the various schools may be immediately fixable.

from "Amherst tours size up school space needs," by Rachael Hanley in the Tuesday January 3, 2006 Daily Hampshire Gazette. Copyright © 2006 GazetteNET.com v.6