Top left: Kenwood Elementary, top right: Park Elementary, bottom left: Horizon Middle School and bottom right: Windy Hills Elementary, (Brian Neben, Central Nebraska Today)
KEARNEY — With the school year completed, the Kearney school district has started several construction projects at several different sites, the Board of Education received updates during their meeting on Monday, June 10.
The projects involved Park Elementary, Windy Hills Elementary, Kenwood Elementary and Horizon Middle School.
At Park Elementary, there are renovations to make the bathrooms compatible with American with Disabilities Act and new corridor flooring.
It was noted that the Park project is ahead of schedule compared to the Bryant and Emerson Elementary projects, which are nearly identical.
The restroom and corridor flooring demolition are complete, the underfloor plumbing is complete, and framing is in progress.
Upcoming work at Park includes installation of structural steel above the framed wall at the restroom entrance, drywall work, painting, flooring and tiling, etc.
At Kenwood Elementary, a new calming and sensory room is being added to the building.
Demolition work has been completed and framing is in progress, KPS staff will handle all of the electrical and mechanical work to help save costs.
It was noted the door frames should arrive in three weeks to complete the framing and drywall.
Windy Hills Elementary is seeing the most amount of work with a full renovation of the existing building and a new addition being added.
Students will be relocated to Buffalo Hills Elementary for the 2024-25 school year while the work is ongoing. The addition and renovation are expected to be complete by August 2025.
So far for the addition, the earthwork, foundation and structural steel work is complete, grouting columns will occur this week and the under slab rough-in will also begin.
On the renovation side, demolition is in progress and will continue for the next several weeks.
At Horizon Middle School, work includes a new sloped roof, new internal roof drain piping and new parapets at the perimeter.
To date, around 70 percent of the new piping has been hung and 70 percent of that has been insulated. Three sperate crews are working on the piping.
The upcoming work at the school includes removal of the rock from the existing roof, demolition of the roof and new installation and continuation of the pipe installation.
It was noted that some of the work on the west side of the building will continue after school resumes in the fall.
During the regular agenda, the school board considered bids for milk and bread products for the upcoming school year.
It was noted that for the milk products, only one bid had been submitted by Hiland Dairy. Another vendor, Kemps-LeMars replied that they don’t have the ability to submit a bid due to concerns about limited inventory and employees.
The board approved to accept the bid from Hilland for milk products.
For bread products, only one bid had been received from Pan-O-Gold submitted the sole bid. The other vendor, Bimbo Bakery, noted they too had concerns about limited inventory and employees.
The board also moved to accept the bid from Pan-O-Gold.
The last item the board considered was the approval of new and revised board policies.
Superintendent Jason Mundorf noted that some of the policies were required, while others were optional.
The policies included a variety of topics, such as, student discipline, public access to school records, public participation, purchasing policy, notice of meetings, promotion and retention, contracting for services, membership in school board associations, student attendance, option enrollment, teacher training, student graduation, classroom environment, student lunch costs and safe schools, all approved by the school board.
The next meeting of the school board will be held on July 8 at 5:30 p.m. in the Staff Development Room in the Administration Building, located at 320 W. 24th St.