La Grande Pride
www.lagrandesd.org • August 2022
5
SUMMER FACILITY PROJECTS
Ongoing projects around the district
By Trish Yerges
The La Grande School District
has made a commitment to its voters
to continually improve the district’s
facilities and to maintain its build-
ings and properties for the benefit of
their students and the community.
To that end, the district has made
great strides to upgrade its facilities
responsibly over the past seven years
especially.
Maintenance and Facilities
Director, Joseph Waite, announced
that “the district has been awarded
a seismic grant of $2.5 million for
seismically strengthening the La
Grande High School auditorium.” He
added that the recent upgrade with
the bond and with safety in mind,
the district wants to protect both the
occupants and the building as best as
possible.
The other benefit of this grant is
that it will allow the district to get
the auditorium roof replaced. “All
the other areas in the district have
been reroofed within the last ten
years,” Waite said.
Waite is currently drafting up a
request for proposal for architectural
and building services and that will
go out to the public later in August.
From there, the process involves a
customary evaluation and recom-
mendation to the district board.
“The difference with the seismic
project, is that it will later go out to
bid for a construction management
general contractor as the design
develops at the architectural firm,”
he said. “It’s likely that both projects
will happen concurrently.”
There are companies in our area
that could handle and perform well
with this scope, he added, but being a
public entity, the district has to put it
out to anyone and everyone. If more
time is needed to capture additional
bids on this project, the district will
take the time to select the best firm
that will fit its needs.
The district has completed seis-
mic reinforcement work before on
the high school gymnasium and on
Greenwood Elementary School in
2018, and that cost about $3 million
total between the two buildings.
Similar to the high school gym-
nasium, the proposed auditorium
work will have to meet the district’s
specific request that the work aes-
thetically blends in with the rest of
the building.
Completed Summer Projects
“We replaced the carpet in the
main office at the high school, and
we installed toilet partition doors
throughout the district,” Waite said.
“We added additional security cam-
eras to the middle school, inside and
out, and we recoated the track.”
The district also poured new
concrete in the entryway and inner
courtyard at Island City Elementary,
and at the high school, they reno-
vated the old automotive shop and
made it into a horticulture lab. That
work involved removing the automo-
tive equipment and putting down an
epoxy flooring. In addition to this,
the stairwells were repainted at the
middle school.
Ongoing Projects
At the middle school, the district
is remodeling the kitchen, work that
is funded by an equipment grant for
$5,000. The food manager, Heather
Torres, and Michelle Glover, the
district’s business manager applied
for that grant for a new refrigerator,
so the room was rearranged to make
room for that.
Besides this, there were some
repairs that had to be done. “The
culinary arts ceiling was damaged
and those ceiling tiles were replaced,”
Waite said.
Also, when doing some renova-
tion work on the Odyssey Center, the
crew noticed some damage under
the building that needed to be ad-
dressed. “We replaced some of the
piers that the building sits on,” Waite
said. “The piers had picked up some
moisture from underneath the build-
ing and were starting to rot out, so
the maintenance crew also worked on
the drainage outside the building to
prevent that from happening again.”
Another project involved the
security camera software, which
was being changed to a new system.
The old system was failing and the
district could not get any support to
fix it.
To provide safe entrance and exit
from the north end of Greenwood
Elementary School’s gym, some old
stairs are being replaced with new
concrete stairs and an ADA ramp.
“At Central, LHS, and Island City,
we’re replacing batteries for our
backup lighting systems,” he said.
Other project news involves the
LHS wood shop, which received a Ca-
reer-Technology-Engineering (CTE)
grant to purchase a new computer
numerical control machine (CNC)
for the students to carve signs from
wood. The old CNC machine is be-
ing transferred to the middle school
so the students there can learn on
that machine as well.
One other project that is note-
worthy is that the high school and
middle school have both installed
vape sensors in the restrooms that
will alert administration if kids
are smoking or vaping in the rest-
rooms. Vaping in the restrooms will
now be sharply reduced because of
this technology.
In addition to these main proj-
ects, there are all the customary
maintenance work going on, like
floor washing and waxing, classroom
repainting, refinishing gym floors,
and shampooing carpets. The district
would like to give a big shout out to
the hard-working maintenance crew
that maintains a safe, healthy, and
clean learning environment for the
students.
Faces
continued from page 1
Starting this school year, Sam
Fiorito will act as dean of students
at Central Elemen-
tary School, trans-
ferring from LMS,
where he just com-
pleted his seventh
year teaching sixth
grade students.
“My role is to
assist the principal
and all the staff,
providing the support where they
need it,” Fiorito said. “Also, I will
have the main role in discipline for
the school and being there to provide
good systems and processes for all
the students. I will make it a prior-
ity to engage students in extracur-
ricular activities and anything they
could be a part of that will help
them be successful.”
“I’m grateful to be part of the
Central building,” he said. “I’m
family-oriented and have an open
door policy. I want to understand
the community better, and I want to
serve in my position as best as pos-
sible.”