East Side Story Nearly Complete

While school's out for summer, local schools haven't been blown to pieces as the song goes – but all three Glasgow schools have seen a facelift.

The school construction bond was successfully closed in the last month to secure financing, and a bond payment of around $7.4 million was wired into the county on June 26. The school board discussed the progress of construction on the brand new Irle Elementary School, the East Side School and the Glasgow High School at the school board meeting on July 9.

School project representative Eric Hultang told the school board members that East Side was nearing completion with work on the parking lot still in progress. The parking lot curbs have been poured and the slopes have been adjusted, and soon the finishing touches will be made before the asphalt is placed.

The school is expected to be completed by the time students return to the classrooms. Paving for the school will probably begin next week some time, followed by landscaping and cleanup of the building. It looks as most of the work will be completed by the first week of August.

Meanwhile, the rush is on to complete as much of the work as possible at the high school before classes begin. Hultang and Superintendent Bob Connors reported to the school board that Sletten Construction had done a good job about keeping everyone up to date about specifications and detail, catching problems before moving ahead.

While the high school has made progress with the referee dressing rooms and bathrooms, as well as the front entrance, the kitchen may not be fully completed by the time classes begin this fall, but they are looking at possible completion by the first week of September.

The biggest project among the three schools – an entirely new school building – has made plenty of headway. The new Irle Elementary School has the foundation laid out. The construction company reported that the underground plumping and foundation would most likely be done and that the framing and structure of the building would be showing up around mid-August.

They reportedly are ahead of schedule after subcontracting for concrete, which has helped finish much of the work. They were hoping to have the roof on by late October or early November. With such a large project on very limited space, storing materials has been an issue and a challenge. So the crews will be working on placement of materials as they come in for the project.

The school board was offered a tour to see the construction progress and the board discussed the possibility of visiting the sites in the near future to see the project.

Other discussions by the school board included reports from Trustee Mona Amundson on the delegate assembly, which will form committees to send changes for Montana schools to the legislature in the future.

While some changes were approved at the assembly to move to committees for further study before going to the legislature, other proposed changes were shot down. Amundson explained that as committees progress, the school board would be informed.

Connors reported at the end of the meeting that he applied for a grant that would possibly help with the entrance for students and visitors. The high tech equipment would swipe a person's identification card for a background check and approval of entrance. He said news of the grant would not come until next summer.