School learning a few lessons from roof woes
An aerial view of the high school and the completed classrooms wing roof, at right.
By CHRIS PETERSON
Hungry Horse News
The high school roof is dried in and completed, School District 6 superintendent Cory Dziowgo told the board last week.
“It can rain all it wants,” he said. “The roof is as good as it gets.”
The district is now looking at replacing the classroom heaters as they were likely damaged by flooding and debris from the roof demolition. They might work now, but could fail six months down the road, cautioned district clerk Dustin Zuffelato.
The district has about $200,000 in leftover contingency funds on the school’s HVAC project and an additional $185,000 in unused maintenance levy funding, which could fund the heaters.
Better to replace them now while the classrooms are closed to students than later, school officials noted.
The classroom wing of the school was damaged by flooding in late July after a heavy rain poured water into the school as the roof was being replaced. The roof was left largely open by contractor Swank Construction.
The school and Swank’s insurance continue to hash out payment for the damage.
National contractor Belfour is doing the restoration/rehab work on the classrooms. A separate contractor was removing some asbestos tiling that got wet in the flooding and had to be removed.
The school has been bussing students to Glacier Gateway and Canyon Elementary while the classrooms are being rehabbed. So far, the process has been going fairly smoothly.
The rehab work is expected to be completed by Oct. 25.
School board members noted there may be some good out of all of this, namely the benefits of a block schedule, which seems to be working well, as class times are longer.
They also noted that the students they’ve spoken to seem to be adapting to the temporary classrooms just fine.
Teachers will also see a pay boost for the block scheduling.
The school board Monday approved a $252 one-time stipend for the loss of a preparatory period and additional workload for the block schedule, which has longer class times.
The payment will come when the teachers return to the normal schedule, the agreement notes.