Aug 14, 2015 2 min read

CARMICHAELS – Carmichaels Area School District will delay the start of school by a week, until Aug. 31, to allow contractors time to finish up work on high school renovations and give staff a chance to prepare the building for students.

Work on the school renovation project is close to being finished and it’s possible classes could start as scheduled Aug. 24, Superintendent John Menhart said Friday.

However, that would not give the district’s maintenance staff time it needs to clean the building or teachers a chance to get into their classrooms to get them ready for the start of classes, he said.

It normally takes all summer for the maintenance staff to get the buildings cleaned and ready for school, Menhart said. It would be hard to ask them to clean the high school in less than a week.

Menhart also noted some equipment purchased as part of the renovation project had not been delivered as scheduled. The delivery of new lockers, for instance, was delayed after a supplier went out of business.

“It’s a lot of little things adding up,” Menhart said, explaining reasons for the delay.

All other activities at the school, such as football and cheerleading practices, will proceed as scheduled, Menhart said.

Starting a week later than planned, the district also will push back the last day of school and graduation by a week, from May 27 to June 3, Menhart said. All holidays and in-service days will remain unchanged, he said.

Progress reports on the renovation project presented to the board at meetings during the last few months have indicated the completion would come down to the wire.

The project was expected to be finished Aug. 20. Menhart said Friday that he believes 95 percent of the work will be done on Aug. 31.

“We’ll have some growing pains even when we do get in there,” he said.

The $20.4 million renovation of the middle school and high school began in the spring of 2014. Work was first completed in the middle school and then moved to the high school.

Classrooms in the middle school were complete earlier.

Menhart said he could have waited until next week to see how work progressed before deciding to delay the start date, but wanted parents to have time to make any arrangements they might need to make to adjust to the change.