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Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette
Hancock Schools Superintendent Steve Patchin told the Board at its regular April meeting that all bond issue projects are progressing.
HANCOCK -- Hancock School Superintendent Steve Patchin on Monday provided a bond update to the school board at its regular April meeting.
Patchin said OHM is in the final phase of the parking lot design and within the next two to three weeks the school should be in the position to start the bidding process for the work.
"There's going to be two parts as we complete the design," Patchin told the board. "There's going to be a basic layout, and there will also be optional pieces."
The reason the optional pieces are going out for bid, he said, is because the project will come up against a "hard cap" in what was budgeted for the bond issue.
"We wanted to see how much these other pieces would cost, if by chance the original cost went down, which could happen," Patchin said.
The playground design is also progressing, Patchin said, after having received feedback from parents and teachers. The designs are now in the completion stage and are creating initial cost estimates.
As soon as those are complete, he said, the designs and estimates will go back to the parent committee, then on to the school board.
Included in the playground design is the removal of the asphalt in the area, because it is cracked and damaged and has been in place since the school opened in 1989. It will be replaced with new asphalt.
Barkell Elementary Principal Dan Vaara said that there are still a number of issues to be resolved regarding the playground design, equipment and budget limits.
"We have all these things we want," he said, "but we really don't know what the cost is going to be yet," adding that "once we start getting an idea of how much things are going to cost, we'll have a better idea of what we'll be able to have."
Among the items of consideration is ensuring there will be open areas for the children to play football and baseball games. There will also be a basketball hoop in the area, so the 5- and 6-year-olds will have something to shoot at, said Vaara. The hope is to have the playground completed and ready for the beginning of the 2023-24 school year.
The November 2022 bond proposal included the addition of STEM labs in each building, including 3-D printers, VEX robotics, CAD/CAM stations, Mechatronics, Oculus virtual reality stations, engineering activity stations, programmable drones, electrical circuit stations, and instructional technology to promote student learning and discovery and to repurpose spaces that are currently underutilized.
Inside Barkell, the plans of repurposing spaces is in the planning phase.
Vaara said that the art room is going to be relocated into the current STEM room. The current art room is connected to the science room, divided by a partition. That will be opened up, providing one large, open space for the STEM Lab and the Makerspace all in one area, which will be convenient, he said.
Makerspaces, fab labs and STEM labs are intended to provide settings where these formal and informal technology and engineering programs provide learning experiences.
Makerspaces are designed to challenge students to create and learn through hands-on, personalized experiences throughout elementary, middle and high school.
Patchin said Palmer Hamilton will be the designer for the fab lab steam labs.
"They did walk-throughs in the elementary and middle-school," Patchin said, "and also looked at the high school's manufacturing space, while they are in the design phase and working with OHM."