Charles City school board OKs almost $400,000 in summer projects

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Board of Education approved three summer projects at its meeting this week, totaling several hundred thousand dollars.

The school board accepted bids to resurface the track at Comet Field, replace some flooring at Washington Elementary School and remove some of the concrete “walls” along the outside of the Washington building.

Superintendent Mike Fisher said all of the projects — with bids totaling more than $387,000 — are expected to be finished by the end of summer.

The largest project is for the running track around the football field.

The school board approved accepting the bid from Woodruff Construction Inc. of Waterloo for $269,859. The largest part of that expense is more than $125,000 for a synthetic rubber surfacing on the track.

Fisher said the district had budgeted $250,000 for the project, but had decided that the bid it was close enough to proceed.

“If it had been more than that we would possibly talk about rebidding,” Fisher said. “But coming out of COVID we’re seeing the cost of supplies and labor is going up, so we were pleasantly happy that it wasn’t any higher than that. Overall, our anticipation is we have other things that are under budget, so our total facilities budget for the summer will be on track to be on target.”

Fisher said Woodruff — the company that last year built the school’s new baseball and softball facilities — was the only bidder on this project, but they had learned that Woodruff had bid out a large part of the subcontracting to other companies, and so the district will still see some advantage of competitive bidding.

A bid from Hillegas Flooring of Charles City for $72,595 for new flooring at the Washington preschool and commons was approved, and Fisher said that is a project that will be paid for and done earlier than expected because of federal COVID funding.

He said the district had planned to fund the project for $25,000 per year over three years, but when it found out it was eligible to use ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funding, “it just makes sense that it accelerates something that needs done, because the carpet is very worn out in the preschool.”

“So it’s another place where we’re actually saving property tax money by using some of the federal stimulus money,” he said.

The Board of Education also approved a bid from Iowa Wall Sawing of Independence for $44,660 to remove 14 of the cement walls on the exterior of the Washington Elementary building that Fisher said create “chutes” that make it difficult to remove snow and that provide unwanted access to the roof.

Removing the walls had been recommended as part of an Iowa Construction Advocate Team (ICAT) analysis of the district’s facilities. The same analysis had resulted in the earthen berms around the building being removed last summer.

“We’re not removing all of them, Fisher said about the concrete walls. “We’re just removing 14 that are in the most high-traffic areas, that are some of the biggest safety issues, that also have the biggest access to the roof.”

Also at the meeting Monday evening, the board:

• Heard a report from Fisher that the school district is posting openings for two stipend-compensated positions as COVID coordinators, to help with administering COVID-19 program funds; staying abreast of county, state and federal guidelines for dealing with the virus; dealing with the district response to continued positive cases of COVID-19 in the district and other issues.

“Just to be honest,” Fisher said, “I’ve been doing most of that work, but as we move toward the strategic plan and getting back to our core mission, we’ve looking to free up some capacity with me and our leadership team.”

• Agreed to hold only one board meeting in July, on July 19.

• Set a public hearing date of 6:15 p.m. June 14, on district Flex account funding, a matter Fisher called a “routine” state requirement.

• Heard a report on the Agile Mind math curriculum for grades six through eight

• Approved resignations of Laura Mackay as paraeducator, Rebecca DeBell Mead as special education teacher, Terri Hay as paraeducator and Alan Aird as bus driver.

• Approved appointments of Drew Mitchell for 9th grade football, Susan Hoefer for head varsity volleyball, Thadeus Barry for ninth grade baseball, Heather Phillips as associate high school principal, Thomas Larsen for Washington special education, Lexis Weigmann as volunteer softball coach and Alecia Landers for 8th grade reading.

• Approved a one-year contract for Ann Hanes as special education teacher.