Crunch Time!

I'm back after taking a roughly one month hiatus from writing this blog. It was really nice to take a break from writing, but now that the school year is upon us it is time to get back into the groove. That's not to say there hasn't been plenty happening around the district because it has been very busy! If you've driven by the school lately you have probably noticed quite a few changes.

Phase III of our construction project is moving along nicely and we believe the work that was scheduled for completion this summer is going to be finished right on time. In fact, just this week we started cleaning carpet in the lower elementary classrooms and hope to have a majority of that finished by the end of the week. If all goes well we'll start moving furniture into those classrooms by the first part of next week. While we aren't yet into punch list items, we are getting close. A lot of the work from the contractor this week is focused on painting and putting in the new entrances in both attendance centers. We are still waiting on some of the doors, but confidence is high all this will be done it time for school to start! I am always amazed at how quickly things seem to come together. 

The walls for the new addition are up, it is great to see the footprint of this building begin to take shape. Not a lot is going on with this part of the project right now as we have most of our manpower dedicated to the interior work. Once school gets started, we'll shift back to this part of the project where we'll start hanging trusses for the building. As a reminder, this portion isn't slated for completion until sometime during the fall of 2020.

You may have been wondering what's going on with the track. I was on vacation when it was resurfaced and the first reports and pictures I received after it was 'completed' were that it looked great! Unfortunately over the course of about a 48 hour period it darkened. Needless to say, this is not at all what we were expecting. On Monday morning we met with the vendor who agrees with our assessment and has assured us that he is going to make this right by the district. The working theory is that there is some sort of microfilm on the track. He took multiple photos and has sent them to his polyurethane vendor and chemist who supplied the rubber coating. Once they get their report back they'll have a better idea of how to correct the problem. We have not paid for the track work yet and I made it clear that we will not until this is rectified.

Next week the prelude to the opening of the school year will begin when our brand new teachers are expected to arrive on Tuesday. It is an exciting time for our new employees as they begin their career and we take the opportunity to prepare them to be a teacher at Hudson. We'll spend the week sharing our values, the traditions of our school, instructing them on our priorities as a district for learning, and if we have time we'll even show them how to run the copy machine! The remainder of the faculty will follow one week later on August 20th when we kick off the year with our opening convocation assembly and open house that evening. From there it is just a short hop to the beginning of the school year, which is scheduled for Friday, August 23rd. 

School starts two weeks from Friday!