The latest on the construction projects at NLCSD

I caught up with Superintendent Wahls this week to get the latest on all the construction going on in the school district. It is going well, and the results are impressive. The new gym is racing toward completion. Wahls has every hope that it will be done by late September, in time for the Homecoming activities. It would give everyone, including the returning alumni, a chance to see what’s new.

The gym will seat just over 500 with bleachers on one side only. Mr. Burns will have an office there as he conducts elementary PE daily in this space. They currently are working on the bathrooms, the storage rooms, and the concession stand. As soon as it’s finished, it will be the site of JH sports contests. It will also accommodate volleyball tournaments when extra courts are needed. The possibilities it allows are endless.

The hallway connecting the two buildings is done and next up is the roofing which should go pretty fast. The electrical and HVAC are done, and the inside of the gym will be painted in the next week or two.

The parking lot, aka the old tennis court, will be the next project that will occur hopefully sometime this month. The current west parking lot will also get a badly needed facelift.

The elementary remodeling has begun. A new HVAC system will be installed in the area. The space will contain two classrooms and the elementary library plus a refiguring of offices and a staff lounge. This new flexibility will allow the elementary building to morph into whatever the district needs depending on enrollment. The tradition of three sections will continue as class size dictates. The hope is the project will be completed in approximately 42 days give or take a week or two. It should be ready for the first day of school.

There are two other projects going on that should also be completed by the start of school. The HS/MS buildings are getting new windows and that project is nearing completion. There will also be a new playground at Clark.

The district’s facilities are truly first-rate. It speaks to the decades of school boards, administrations, and citizens who saw a need and made it happen. The transformation is ongoing, as it has been for almost 90 years (and dates are approximate): the 1936 new (and current) high school building; the 1938 auditorium addition; the 1955 addition, now the middle school; Clark Elementary in 1964; the new gym and locker rooms in 1968; the 1978 cafeteria and shop addition at Clark; and the separate bus garage, the remodeling of the middle school, the installation of geothermal climate control, the purchasing and repurposing of the Hines Motors and telephone buildings, the all-weather track and renewed football stadium, plus what’s happening now. As the years march forward, the vision is always the same — “what’s best for our kids!”

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