Astronomic building costs bring West renovations to screeching halt

At the beginning of February, the West staff was fully prepared for the makeover of the school. With classrooms being cleaned out, staff moving around, and the school store beginning to empty, the plan looked like it was running smoothly, but what the school didn’t expect was the sudden postponement of renovation, one that will delay work until next school year.

As the building remains untouched, the school board endeavors to find a way to continue with all construction plans. This postponement arose from multiple issues, ranging from scarcity of bids to high prices for needed materials. In the end, there just wasn’t enough money to follow through with these plans.

“West was not the only school; there were several other schools that were supposed to have their secured entries moved to a different location in the building to be by the main entrance,” Principal Erin Kohl said. “What happened is the district had put together all of the plans, worked with the architects to put together all of the plans, and when they took those plans and they put it all through bids, the district only got one bid, and that bid came in about twice as much as they originally anticipated the costs to be.”

Because of issues beyond the school board’s control, the exact date as to when the construction will continue is unknown. As for now, the school can only watch and hope for prices to drop.

“There isn’t a designated date to pick up the construction, and I think a lot of it is going to depend on the market and where costs are for building materials and labor,” Kohl said. “What I’ve been told and what I think was discussed was them going back into the fall and taking a look at where things are at and if things seemed to be more favorable, they would submit the request for bids again and see what would happen in the fall.”

Projects such as the movement of the main office require the help of other companies, especially when it comes to funding. 

“Construction companies that do this kind of work see the proposals out there and they look at everything being proposed to happen and they put in a bid on how much they will charge to do the work,” Kohl said. “It’s basically one bid for all of the construction projects. They are giving us an estimate of how much it will cost for the company to come in and do the project for us.”

At the same time as West planned on going under construction, the new middle school was in the process of being built, and the school board realized which project deserved higher priority.

“The bid for the new middle school also came in over budget and so the school board had agreed to take some of the referendum funding that had been designated for the safety project to make that middle school happen,” she said. “They’ve already dug holes and cleared land and that’s something that needs to happen. We have many kids that need a middle school to go to, so they really wanted to continue with those plans because they already worked on hiring staff for the middle school and they already have a lot of plans on transitioning students and so that was definitely a priority to make sure we had enough money to make that funding happen.”

Before news spread to the staff, preparations had begun, such as clearing out classrooms and moving teachers. Thankfully, the school was early in the process of these preparations.

“The only classroom that was cleared out was C-27 and we put all of the furniture back in there and all the teachers are now back in that space,” Kohl said. “The school store had put most of their stock down by door 24 and they have a mobile unit by that door. I’m not really sure that we’re going to get the store back up and running for the fall and if we feel like it’ll be another year before the project begins, then we’ll get the school store back up and running in shape. If it feels more short-term, then we won’t get it back up. As for the bank, we hadn’t moved Mrs. LaCount and the bank to the office yet, so she stayed put.”

As the year progresses and the new middle school begins to be built, the board can only wait and hope building costs come down. The school board only has to wait for more bids to supply the construction before continuing with the proposed plans. While the exact time before the modifications can continue is unknown, the school will be prepared to jump into the plans when the time is right. As for now, the school has to sit and wait before it can undergo another makeover.

By Ruby Pluchinsky

March 18 2022

Volume 118 Issue VI