Progress on the new Iola Elementary School will depend on COVID-19.
School board president Dan Willis gave board members a construction update on Monday night.
About 100 workers are on site at the elementary school building at any one time, but work can easily be derailed by a COVID case.
In several cases, crews carpool to Iola from other cities. If one of those workers gets sick, the entire crew has to quarantine.
That sets other projects behind.
For example, he said, say a van full of plumbers from Wichita has a case of COVID. That crew can’t work. Masons have to wait on the plumbing. Electricians have to wait on the masons.
Willis said he is still hopeful the project will be completed this summer and open for the next school year.
“If you can tell me COVID isn’t going to be a problem, we’ll make that date,” Willis said.
He also addressed cracks in the concrete base. New board member John Wilson recently toured the facility and said he was concerned with the cracks.
That’s actually a normal part of the process, Willis said. School board members and administrators asked the same question, he told Wilson.
Concrete typically cracks as it cures and settles, architects told him. Fault lines are built into the process to account for cracking, but it happens in other places.
The concrete is tested and the cracking does not affect the structural integrity, he said. The cracks will be filled.
“They’re monitoring it to make sure it’s not moving,” he said.
WILLIS also gave an update on complete projects at the middle and high schools.
The HVAC system at the middle school is working, but crews are working through problems in two restrooms and an office. Overhead radiant heat in those rooms isn’t efficient and needs to be improved.
That will be addressed, as crews are now working at the elementary school site so they can easily be pulled over to the middle school to do the work, Willis said.
A punch list of items at the new science center continues to be whittled down, Willis said. A garage door that separates the robotics classroom from the commons area was just installed, with a few adjustments.
