Construction continues for USD 394
The new addition to the Butler wing is the first of many phases of construction for USD 394. These upgrades are part of the bond issue, which was passed in the fall of 2017.
The 2017-2018 school bond issue construction began in early June. That was the official time; contractors were actually placed on the site.
“They started in June all of the site work were seeing the roads, the sidewalks, and stuff should be done this year before winter,” said Randal Chickadonz.
The addition being made at the high school and the elementary school are slated to finish up at the end of next summer. Construction inside the middle school will not start officially until this spring.
There are two projects in the works right now that are not a part of the bond issue. Those are the new track and putting turf on the baseball field at the high school. The contractors have established the construction of those projects.
“So when we bid it out we bid all of the projects at one time and then depending on when they thought they could get asphalt or when they could get concrete, or when they had crews available to lay the block,” said Chickadonz. “They set the timing schedule out based on their availability to get resources and get their workers.”
In 2004, the board did a bond project that basically built the elementary school, and put the new gym on the high school. The community gave the district some ideas of things they would like to see improved in the school, and the school district staff did the same thing.
“We keep a running list of projects that we thought would be nice to be done, but we just don’t have money right know,” said Chickadonz. “And we had our board rank those in kind of a priority order; we merged those two lists together.”
“So it’s kind of a combination of a list from back in 2004 bond that didn’t get done, and something’s the bored wanted too see get done know,” said Chickadonz.
The community had approximately ten million dollars, and the board just went down the list the board had ranked, and when they hit ten million, the board cut it off.