The 'Eagle Times' Student Newspaper: News

School district undergoes changes

By Katie Barnes

April 29, 2008

     The Silver Lake school district has been experiencing some obvious changes recently. Superintendent Dr. Randy Freeman explained that the construction at the elementary school is currently the main focus.
    He said the contractor’s main goals are completing the 10 new classrooms in the northeast corner of the building and the new gym in the southeast corner.
    McPherson Contractors is in charge of the additions at both the elementary and the high school. Even though it might seem like the high school and elementary construction are one project, Freeman said they are very different. He said that they have different costs and requirements.
    He said that McPherson Contractors was chosen through a formal bidding process. The school board chose them because they had the lowest bid and were a dependable company.
    The construction for just the elementary alone will cost $3.739 million. The money for this construction is coming from the bond issue voted on last April. To fund the bond, part of the money comes from local taxpayers and the other part comes from the state of Kansas. Freeman said there are a lot of hidden costs that don't go into that total, though. He said examples of that include the architectural work and the electrical work.

    Freeman explained how he thinks the project is developing.
    “The construction costs right now are under the original estimates, but daily we have things that have to be changed that cost more money than what was in the original designs. Right now I think we're in pretty good shape. However, by the time we're done, hopefully we get everything that we originally hoped for under the budgeted price,” replied Freeman.
    The deadlines for the construction at the elementary school are Aug.1 for the classrooms to be finished and Sept. 20 for the new gym. The deadlines for the high school construction project are scattered throughout the upcoming school year. Freeman said the office area is supposed to be finished by Aug. 15, and the remainder of the project is supposed to be finished by Jan. 1, 2009.
    Freeman explained that there have been delays to the construction schedule.
    “I would tell you right now the construction isn't on schedule at the elementary school and the reason is because of the weather. We have had probably one of the worst winters as far as moisture that they've had for years. So that has put us probably a month or a month and a half behind. We are hopeful that in the spring and summer we will be able make a lot of progress and catch back up,” stated Freeman.
    There will be a few more small changes to the school district other than the construction.
    “There will probably be one to two new custodial staff hired due to the increase of size to our buildings. Also we will add one and a half new kindergarten teachers because one of the main reasons we're building the 10 new classrooms is that we are going from half day kindergarten to full day,” replied Freeman.