Clarkdale Upper Elementary School teachers are one step closer to moving back into their classrooms in Building 300 as the final touches from major upgrades and renovations are being made to the building, extensively damaged by tornadoes more than two years ago.
“I think they will be pleased with the building. I hope they are,” said Jeremy Smith, the district’s director of operations. “I know it’s taken a little while, but the finished product is super nice. It is something we can be proud of.”
In 2022, two separate tornadoes swept through the Clarkdale School campus.
The first one on March 30 caused major damage to the school’s softball complex, knocking down a wooden fence and damaging the bleachers, dugout and press box. Two weeks later on April 13, a second tornado swept through the campus, significantly damaging the roof of Building 300 and flooding classrooms and hallways below. Several other buildings and walkways on campus also were damaged, and the softball field took another hit, losing batting cages and damaging another building.
Work to repair Building 300, as well as the softball field, was a slow process.
The school district was in the middle of upgrading softball facilities at all of its county high school campuses, so some of the softball field delay was caused by the scheduling of these projects and by efforts to relocate the field away from a nearby public road. The softball field is nearly complete with work to the grandstands still underway.
As for Building 300, inspections and discussions with insurance officials led to lengthy delays as they tried to determine if Building 300 could be repaired or needed to be demolished. After much back-and-forth, it was determined the building could be repaired. Parents had expressed concerns about the delay, and bids were finally opened for the project last fall. Work began in earnest at the first of the year.
“It’s been a tough ordeal for everybody involved — teachers, parents, students — but I’m glad the board decided to do it and do it right,” said Superintendent John-Mark Cain of the repairs and upgrades to Building 300. “That building is very nice and a safe place for our students to learn.”
A new roof that meets stricter building codes was installed on Building 300, and the water-damaged indoor ceilings were ripped out and replaced. The building also received new windows and new lighting fixtures.
“Not only is it a new roof, but this is sort of a standard we are setting for the district,” Smith said. “This roof is a metal roof with a half-inch decking and four-and-a-half inches of insulation on top of it, and it has a membrane roof. This is new for our district and this building and Building 200 are the first ones to get it.”
Smith said the new roof design should hold-up better in storms, last longer, be less susceptible to leaks and the added insulation will be more energy efficient.
In addition, the building’s interior was cleaned and painted in the school’s colors of white with maroon trim and doorways. New laminate wood flooring was installed. Each of the classrooms has new cabinets, solid surface countertops and 5% roll-down solar blinds, which help with the sunlight streaming in the windows. Some of the doors were replaced due to damage, and a wall-mounted backpack rack was installed outside each classroom.
“The bathrooms pretty much stayed the same. We are in the process of cleaning them,” Smith said. “They were remodeled back in 2012, so they just need a good cleaning.”
New fire and access controls to exterior doors and a new intercom system still need to be installed, but most work left to do is on the building’s exterior.
“They are probably one-third through with the soffit underneath the roof overhang. Most of the fascia is complete, there’s a little bit in the back that needs to be completed,” Smith said late last week.
Cain said he understands the lengthy delay has frustrated some parents, but the district wanted to make sure the repairs were not a patch job but that the building was fixed correctly. Altogether, about $3 million in work has been pumped into the Clarkdale campus, including more than $1.2 million alone for Building 300.
“The thought was that we were just going to fix it back to the old standard, and we said, ‘well there’s a new standard and we need to fix it back to the new standard,’ and that took time,” he said. “We caught a lot of heat for that, but we could have patched it, but we decided to do it right and it is going to be right.”
The county school district offices and schools are closed this week, but Smith hopes teachers will be able to start moving back into the building by the end of next week.
“All of their stuff is staged over in the gym where I can pull the portables out so all they’ve got to do is bring it from the gym into here,” he said.
About half of the modular classrooms that were being used on the campus to house some of the elementary students have been removed with the rest slated to be gone by the start of school.
“As of last week, we had half of them gone, and once we get them all out of the way, we will basically revert that back to a parking area,” Cain said.