An update on planning for the middle school bond referendum project and the HVAC project happening at the high school this year was given at the Washington Community School Board meeting Wednesday.

During his superintendent report, Willie Stone shared that he and District Technology Director Jeff Brock are in the early stages of planning as they are meeting biweekly with project manager Carl A. Nelson and SVPA Architects to finalize the designs and on the other weeks they’re meeting with the middle school and high school administrators. Stone says they will soon be creating a building committee to make sure everything with the project is taken care of, and he shares one significant change they’ve made is cutting down the size of the middle school media center, “We had a 4,500 square foot media center which is bigger than any room in our building at any time right now and our middle school media center is not used a lot anymore just because we’re all computers. So we’re actually going to cut that down and use that space differently.”

The middle school project is planned to go out for bid this November with construction to begin in 2023. For the HVAC project happening in the old junior high wing of the high school, Stone shared that in March contractors will start installing electrical conduits in the main and connector hall, and metal shop, storage room, finish room, and dock room. They have also arranged for four storage containers to arrive in March, and on May 13th they will move items out of the entire north end of the east wing to begin asbestos removal. Stone says they already have plans for where the classes in that area will be temporarily moved to. On May 24th, the last day of school, it will be all hands on deck to move items out of the remainder of the rooms for the rest of the work to begin. The $3.74 million project is mostly funded by COVID-19 Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief dollars, with SAVE or PPEL funds to cover the rest.