ESCANABA - The Escanaba School Board was updated on the status of construction at the high school, along with the planning for upcoming elementary school roofing and bus garage projects, at Monday's board meeting.
Jerry Stefano, vice president of construction management from Wolgast Corp., provided the board with the monthly construction manager's report of progress.
According to Stefano, renovations are continuing for the A-wing in the high school building, which will be used to house both seventh and eighth graders next year as Escanaba Junior High School.
"A-wing is in full construction mode," he said. "Currently we have ceilings being put in. Half the classrooms have been completely gutted."
Now rooms are being, or already have been, painted, and work is being done to install cabinets and ceilings throughout the A-wing area.
The detention room, in the A-wing of the building, has been painted and is ready, but the faculty room located next door has some work that must be finished, he said. Work to science classrooms in A-wing has created some very nice spaces, according to Stefano.
"They are really wonderful," he said. "The natural light accompanied by the artificial light - they are really, really fine spaces ... wonderful learning environments."
According to Stefano, construction on phase 1 of the project has about four or five weeks to go. Phase 2 of A-wing is slated to begin in mid to late February.
"Then the balance of A-wing will be completed, and we'll do our same operation," he said. "We'll be going in, gutting everything out, painting and refurbishing the final classrooms, and that will just about wrap up the high school, except for a little bit of work in the kitchen and some of the commons area."
Stefano said he anticipates the high school will be completely finished by mid-April, with the exception of work that needs to be done in the kitchen area.
"The kitchen is so heavily used and so important to the district, it can't be shut down, isolated or disrupted in any way," he said, adding that portion of the project will wait until school is out to be completed.
According to January's report, the C-wing, D-wing, F-wing, and G-wing of the high school are 99 percent complete, and 80 percent of B-wing is finished.
The next step in the district-wide construction project will be replacing roofs at Soo Hill and Webster elementary schools, and some bus garage construction.
"The two roofing projects - Soo Hill and Webster - the total construction and length of time would be between 30 to 45 days from start to finish depending on the type of weather we end up experiencing, but they're very short-term projects," assured Stefano.
He said the bus garage will be the last main challenge of the project, as it requires some "unique design solutions," but once construction begins it should not take more than 60 days to complete.
In other business, the board unanimously approved hiring Kali Katarincic as a health care interpreter for a student at Lemmer Elementary School.