Schools’ bathrooms closed due to improper floor construction
The Moscow School District is still working to complete construction projects that delayed the start of the 2014 academic year, and has closed down half of the bathrooms in local public schools.
MSD Superintendent Greg Bailey said the same bathroom construction projects that forced the school district to extend summer break for an extra eight days have also halted construction on the schools’ new science labs.
He said the floors that were installed in the new bathrooms didn’t meet certain requirements and construction crews have to start over.
“It was supposed to be a polished concrete and it didn’t come out the way it should of,” he said. “That kind of delayed a lot of the activities that were supposed to be done.”
He said the school board and the construction company have weekly meetings to discuss the status of projects and how to resolve the situation.
Even though construction happens during school hours, he said students are kept away from the work areas.
“We do have a few workers that will go into bathrooms, but those bathrooms aren’t being used right now anyway,” Bailey said. “(The construction workers) also have to have permission from the principles to go into the school.”
He said local elementary schools usually have two boys’ and two girls’ bathrooms, but now students only have one of each. The school district has asked the construction company to work on projects that create excessive noise or dust after school hours.
Principles and faculty members couldn’t be reached for comments regarding the construction.
Russell Meeuf, a professor at the University of Idaho, has a child enrolled at Lena Whitmore Elementary. He said he and his significant other were unhappy with the late start to the school year.
“Many parents were pretty livid about the delay of school,” he said. “It cost a lot of parents a good deal of money in extra daycare expenses that was kind of thrown at us at the last minute.”
Meeuf said local schools held a “Parent and Teacher Night” the day before school officially started. He said it was obvious at the meeting the main bathrooms were nowhere near complete.
He said his child has not been affected by the lack of bathrooms because younger students have personal bathrooms connected to their classrooms. Meeuf has not heard of any potential dangers or classroom distractions due to the construction.
He said that the overall construction project was not handled well by the school district.
“I think it was great that the town passed a levy to invest in our public education system,” Meeuf said. “I think it’s clear that the actual management of the construction projects themselves was handled poorly. Whether that’s a reflection on the construction company or the school administrators, I can’t say.”
Even though some improvements are delayed, Bailey said the construction company has completed a large portion of the work — the schools now have new roofs, windows and heating boilers. He said so far the students love the window replacements and the schools’ updated look.
“They said they can actually see out of the windows now,” he said. “Also it has been reducing the heat in the summer times and we’re expecting them to help in the winter times.”
Bailey said there is no estimated completion date for the projects despite the district’s multiple requests for a time frame. But he said that he prefers quality work to quick work.
“It’s been a long time since we did a project this big. You got to think, the newest building we have in the school district is a 1960s building,” he said. “So major construction projects, compared to other school districts, is pretty far behind.”
Danielle Wiley can be reached at [email protected]