Moving Into the New St. George Elementary School
by Darrel Stufflebeam
July 23, 2008
The school board toured the new SGES last week and was impressed with the building’s functionality and architecture. Although the building is close to completion, it won’t be ready for the start of the new school year. Moving into the new building prior to school starting would have been easier but the inconvenience is offset by the excitement of how wonderful the new school has turned out to be.
At this point, we’re planning to move all non-essential material and equipment to the new building before schools starts on August 14th. That way, the actual move will go more quickly. As of now, it looks like we’ll be able to complete the move in late August or September and we’ll update parents with a letter as soon as we have a definite date. We’ll also have an open house for the public sometime after the school is occupied.
The General Contractor (McPherson Contracting) did everything in their power to have us in the building before the start of school but circumstances beyond their control prevented it. The primary reason for that was a four-month delay in receiving shipments from the steel subcontractor.
I want to take this opportunity to thank McPherson, the Project Manager (Eric Hubener) and the Project Superintendent (Steve Eagan) for their outstanding work. They have provided top-notch expertise and have worked with us and our architect to create a terrific building while holding down costs. In fact, there have been almost no additional expenses during construction. As those with construction experience can tell you, that is an amazing accomplishment—especially for a project of this size.
On a related note, the school board has decided not to pursue New Facility Funding for this year because we would have to be in the building by September 20th in order to be eligible and that deadline is not assured. Also, a decrease in state aid on our Local Option Budget would require more contribution from the district than anticipated. We will be studying New Facility Funding again next year.
As with anything, we at USD 323 could choose to focus on disappointments and seek things to be negative about. We will never do that. Instead, we are thankful for the things we have been blessed with—especially working with your children—and, for the new SGES, we will focus on our fantastic new facility and the excitement of soon being in it.
