Construction forces classroom changes

By Lauren Radomski (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Saturday, April 5, 2008

When Mark Boen’s third graders returned to their Cleveland classroom after last week’s long weekend, their windows were no more.

“We knew all year we’d lose them,” said Boen, whose classroom faces construction on the school’s west side.

Because Boen’s room will connect to the new building addition, construction workers covered the windows with permanent dry wall partitions when school was out Monday.

“Windows are healing to the soul and we are a little restless,” Boen said. “I think when it gets really warm we’ll have some classes outside and just soak up the sun.”

Window work — which also included partitions on Lynette Ringquist’s windows — was only part of the construction projects at Cleveland this week. Staff with Johnson-Nelson Masonry out of Ashby are continuing with above-ground masonry on exterior classroom walls and on the mechanical mezzanine on the east side of the gymnasium. That mezzanine will hold heating and cooling equipment in a matter of days.

“Next week we’re going to be setting our air handling units in,” said R.A. Morton Construction Manager Michael Beach. “We have to drop them from above because they don’t fit through the door.”

Friday marked the arrival of the first truckload of specialty block for the interior walls of the new addition, Beach said; staff will begin work on those walls next week.

Also next week, workers will begin below-grade plumbing projects like waste lines and sanitary sewers.

One part of site that hasn’t seen much action is the Cleveland sledding hill, where workers stopped drilling geothermal wells in late February. Beach said he expects work there to recommence shortly.