By TEDDYE SNELL
Staff Writer
TAHLEQUAH —
For school administrators, August is a flurry of activity. They’re required to iron out the kinks in master schedules, fine-tune bus routes, work out enrollment plans, and make sure students have an easy transition from summer fun to serious schoolwork.
Now that classes have resumed for local students, Tahlequah Public Schools Superintendent Shannon Goodsell and others are focusing on completing a number of construction projects, and tackling an ever-shrinking budget allocation.
The district has three major construction projects in the works – new cafeterias at Greenwood Elementary School and Tahlequah High School – along with building a new elementary school, Heritage Elementary, on the south side of the city. Funding for the projects are a result of a bond issue/sales tax issue passed by voters in April 2009.
According to Goodsell, the cost for the projects is about $18 million; Heritage Elementary construction costs make up the bulk at $13 million, while $2 million will be spent on the new cafeteria at Greenwood, and $3 million will construct the cafeteria at THS.
TPS Executive Director of Technology and Operations Terry Garrett said the cafeteria projects should be completed by 2011, but the new elementary school construction has been pushed back to opening in fall 2012.
“We also have a couple of other projects funded by the bond/tax issue, including a new parking area for the Tahlequah Multiactivity Center,” said Garrett. “All of the projects are running concurrently. What we’re going to try to do is move the old high school wrestling building and create a middle school athletic spot, but it depends on how the funding works out.”
Garrett said the new TMAC parking lot will be west of the facility, and will run all the way to the middle school parking lot. In the meantime, the school is using the Cornerstone Church parking lot for overflow.
“Cornerstone has been very gracious in allowing us to use this space,” said Goodsell. “Once the parking lot construction is complete, we hope to use the parking directly in front of the TMAC for handicap accessible parking. This may be more than we need for that purpose, but I’d rather have too much than not enough.”
Garrett said construction on the Greenwood cafeteria was set to begin Wednesday.
“The first thing that has to be done is the utility work,” he said. “We met with Tahlequah Public Works Authority, NOPFA and the construction manager to iron out the details, and I believe they have equipment and trucks moving in there today. Hodge will be doing the excavation work.”
Goodsell said due to the rocky terrain, this phase of construction could get a little noisy, but it’s the only way the project can go forward.
Once the utility work is complete at Greenwood, Garrett said the crews will move on to the THS site.
“This is the only bid the board has approved at this point,” said Garrett. “We’ve put out bids on the dirt work for the pads, and those had to be reworked because we were over budget.”
Garrett said dirt work bids should be going out soon, and are projected to be returned by Sept. 20. Bids will then be presented to the board at the October meeting.
Garrett said district officials ended up having to make adjustments to both cafeteria projects.
“We were over budget – thanks to construction costs – on both projects, as we moved closer to breaking ground,” he said. “We ended up having to tweak the square footage, but will be scaled back only slightly.”
Many area residents may remember the projected opening date for Heritage Elementary as originally being fall 2011.
“We had to push this date back due to the fact we’re still finalizing paperwork with the city on the land,” said Goodsell. “Construction has been put out for bids, and the construction managers are reviewing them now. These will be presented to the board at the Sept. 13 meeting.”
Heritage Elementary will serve 500 students in pre-kindergarten through the fourth grade.
But thanks to a shortfall in state funding, some patrons may wonder how the district plans to staff the site.
Goodsell expects the number of students at the other three elementary sites will decline, as will the need for teachers there.
“Essentially, the teachers will follow the students to the new elementary,” he said. “Staffing will also be contingent on reduction of class sizes and, of course, budget funding from the state. Should that improve, we could even look at hiring new teachers, but again, that would be incumbent upon the state’s allocation.”
