New London Schools still awaiting completion of the science room

By STEPH TAHTINEN

Mt. Pleasant News

NEW LONDON ? It?s going to be about another month before students at New London Middle/High School are able to use the new science rooms.

?The original date before all of this happened was Sept. 24. That was our target date, and we?re going to miss that by about a month,? said New London Superintendent of Schools Steve McAllister. ?They?re still working on things down there, our faucets and cabinets and trench covers, and really the biggest issue is the floor.?

There were various issues that came up with the floor in the basement that caused delays; however, McAllister noted that because of some issues that came up, the district will be ending up with a better floor than previously planned.

?It?s expensive, but we?re getting a lot better, superior product,? said Board Member Travis Benz.

According to the construction manager?s progress report given to the school board by Hanson Company, Inc., on Monday night. The floor preparation for those basement science rooms will continue this week, and next week, Sept. 24 to 28, the floor will be coated with fill-in layers and the final color coating will be applied. Each of these steps will take about a day and no one will be able to work down in that area during that time.

Once the floors are completed, there is still additional work to be completed in those science rooms before the classes can begin using them, and McAllister estimated that the classrooms should be done before Halloween.

There is also other site work that remains to be done, which will hopefully be started this week and finished within the next two weeks.

Part of this site work is repairing the sidewalks around the school building, which have been damaged by construction workers throughout the project, which will be back charged to the companies that did the damage.

?We?re just going to simply do it, and we?re going to charge it back to them,? said McAllister. ?They all know that they?ve damaged our existing sidewalks. If there?s any squabble in the end, it will be over the percent of what each prime pays, and we?ll wrestle with that after it?s done and we have the total cost.?

There will also be an additional sidewalk added that was not part of the original plan. A sidewalk from the middle school along the north side of the building to the east parking lot was listed as an alternate during the bid process, but the school board decided not to accept the alternate due to budgetary concerns.

?Some of those cost-savings discussions were before we were awarded the (Harkin) grant,? noted School Board President Laurie Hempen.

However, now that the district has received that Harkin Grant, it is being used for other work that has come up and alternates such as the sidewalk, which will cost $8,500.

The board also:

- Was informed by McAllister that the district had received a $10,000 grant from Monsanto for the purchase of 20 iPads. The check will be presented during halftime at the Oct. 5 football game.

- Gave their support for the sixth grade campout, which will be held May 9-10 and 13-14 in Burlington.

- Discussed the staff technology use regulation and the removal of two sentences to update the policy, allowing employees to use their personal cell phones for district business when appropriate.

- Discussed re-wording the district?s early retirement policy to make it clear that the employee must be in the health plan in order to put money into their 403(b) plan.

- Approved the bus repair and maintenance contract with Tracy?s Truck and Trailer, Inc.

- Set a public hearing date of 7:15 a.m. on Oct. 1 regarding a resolution approving the conveyance of certain property by quit claim deed in the City of New London; the resolution concerns rectifying mistakes that were made in describing boundaries of the property.

- Approved the certified annual financial report and annual transportation report; set bank depository limits of $1 million at Two Rivers and Danville State Savings Bank.

- Appointed Jessica Boyer as school board secretary, Ahlers and Cooney of Des Moines as the board?s legal counsel, Laurie Hempen as board president, Bob McPheron as vice president, Dennis Carter as the Henry County Conference Board officer and Lindsay Porter as the voting delegate to IASB Delegate Assembly.