With word from Washington, D.C. that the environmental study had been approved, the Mobridge-Pollock School Board Tuesday, Aug. 24, approved the letting of bids for the $4.55 million middle school project.
With all the ducks in a row, the district will be taking bids for the project and moving forward with the north parking lot, the mechanical system and demolition of former high school building.
The district will hold a special meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 7, to accept bids for the water services, and curb and gutter.
A second special meeting will be held on Thursday, Sept 23 to accept the bid for the demolition, construction and renovation aspects of the project.
The demolition of the old school can't begin until some utilities have been moved into the middle school building, including temporary boilers for heating the school until the geothermal system has been completed. The auxiliary boiler will then be used during the peak use period of the school year.
Scott Sikking of HKG and Associates Architects of Aberdeen told the board Tuesday, that the firm has set critical dates for the demolition and will work with the district to insure there is time to plan to have the students out of the Middle School during the demolition days.
"We will try to get the building down as soon as we can," he said. "After the approval of the bids, we want to turn around as fast as we can to get the mechanical room built as soon as possible."
Mobridge-Pollock Superintendent Tim Frederick told the board the school calendar has professional development days built in and plans have been made to use those days during demolition. The students would be out of the building and the teachers would be in the High School building.
""As soon as we have a firm date, we will make that announcement to the public," he said.
Sikking said the questions about disrupting teaching and learning. He said the mechanical systems could be installed in two to three rooms at a time. He said the rooms would need to be cleared to give the electricians access.
The first priority is to get he mechanical room completed and put in the boilers. The line blocks will then simultaneously be installed so the old system can be shut down step-by-step when the new is ready to go online.
There are still questions about the project are being discussed he told the board.
"We have been debating whether we want to move forward with the renovation (throughout the year) or wait until school gets out and let all heck break loose," he told the board. "Or we can let the contractor come to us with ideas of how to make the schedule work."
He said the firm wanted to make sure these details were clear to the contractors and said they were "very, very close" to getting it worked out.
Todd Goldsmith of Goldsmith and Heck Engineering of Mobridge, told the board the short time frame in which the north parking lot needs to be completed, may add to the cost of the project.
The board agreed having the engineering firm on site during the time subcontractors are working on the parking lot on concrete projects would be of a benefit to the district. Goldsmith recommended that he also be on site for the building project in aspect in which they are qualified.
He said there are some soil monitoring that would benefit having a liaison between the contractors and the soil tech. It would save the district the funds it would cost to have a soil tech on site.
The board also agreed with Sikking that small issues that come up during renovation should be able to be decided on site. He said Frederick could make decision on issues with cost less than $7,500 and that he could relate those issues to the Building Committee.
The board also approved a contract for Ashley Feltner as a highly qualified, half time para-professional at Freeman Davis.
The board went into executive session and when it reconvened, a motion was made to approve the final contract with the Mobridge-Pollock Education Association for the 2010-2011 school year.
According to Frederick, on Tuesday, August 17, the Mobridge-Pollock Education Association ratified a tentative contract for the 2010-2011 school year with the Mobridge-Pollock School District, with the final board approval at Tuesday's meeting. Negotiated contract changes include: implementation of a wellness plan, increase in annuities for staff who do not take district health insurance, non-binding letters of notice to rehire for support professionals and modest salary increases for both classified and certified staff.
