Colfax schools referendum: progress humming along

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX  — Progress on the $7.2 million referendum projects approved by voters last November is moving right along, says Bill Yingst, Colfax school district administrator.

Starting in early April on the addition to Colfax Elementary was a wise decision and ensures the addition will be completed by the time school starts this fall, Yingst said at the Colfax Board of Education’s June 19 meeting.

The new elementary classrooms being built on the north side of the existing elementary school will replace the “temporary” classrooms that were located directly east of the elementary cafeteria and were in use for 30 years.

At an approximate cost of $1.5 million, the elementary school project includes a 1,500 square-foot art room, several other classrooms and a therapy area for therapies such as speech therapy and occupational therapy.

The therapy area will all be in one space so the therapists do not have to travel around the building.

One of the new classrooms will be for early childhood education and will connect to the existing junior kindergarten classroom.

Construction crews are beginning to work on the walls, classrooms and duct work on the elementary addition. Site preparation has begun for finishing up the exterior of the addition, and the roof has been sealed up for a while now, Yingst said.

The east side of the building where the lobby and commons area is located, and where the new high school office will be built, has been gutted. Crews will start building back shortly, Yingst said.

Welders were at the school on the Saturday before the school board meeting to work on the entrance to the high school. The welders had been delayed in their work because of rain, and so they worked Saturday to get caught up with their part of the project, he said.

The former high school office has been gutted, and construction crews will soon be ready to start building back that area of the school as well, Yingst said.

School board member Jodi Kiekhafer noted that while the board had discussed several options for the entrance to the high school by the new office, the board had never voted on the options.

Should the school board vote — or have voted — on the options? Kiekhafer wondered.

The work has already started, so it would be difficult to change the entrance now, Yingst said.

As for the technology education shop, walls have been removed to make more room for students and machinery, he noted.

Footings have been poured for the new bus maintenance building, and crews have been working on the frost walls, too, Yingst said.

“Something is going on all around” — in the building, underground, and on the roof, he said.

Of the other projects approved in the referendum, building infrastructure will cost approximately $2.2 million; the bus maintenance building will cost about $800,000; technical education and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) expansion will cost approximately $1.2 million; improving safety and security by moving the high school office to the east side of the building will cost about $1 million; and district bus replacement will cost about $600,000.

In addition to the construction items and the buses, the referendum question included $400,000 to pay off the school district’s unfunded pension liabilities.

All of the construction is expected to be completed by the time school starts in September.