The first day of school came fast, and so did the deadline for summer renovations. Classrooms were painted, floors were replaced, and rooms were remodeled, but the work wrapped up at the very last minute.

“We started school on Aug. 6 and we finished renovations on Aug. 5,” Assistant Principal Neal Kiser said. “It was down to the wire but we finally finished everything.”

Custodians and staff spent their summer cleaning, moving furniture, and getting classrooms ready. Some student workers also pitched in, helping with the heavy lifting.

“We had to clean out every single classroom that had carpet, everything had to go,” Senior Addison Fry said. “We had to take all the desks, even the old desks from upstairs, which is really hard believe it or not.”

As if loud construction noises, dusty messes, and the summer heat wasn’t enough, the school was quite crowded. There were lots of people working in the building at once, which made the job tricky.

“There’s a lot of moving parts,” Mr. Kiser said. “One group of projects couldn’t finish or start until another group finished, and so there’s people on top of each other all summer long just waiting on the other to finish.”

The bathrooms also got a big upgrade, one of the biggest projects of the summer. Floors, walls, sinks and stalls were all redone to give students a cleaner and more updated space. Mr. Kiser admitted the bathroom projects had administrators the most nervous.

“That was one that was really stressing people out,” Mr. Kiser said.

Along with the bathroom and classroom revamp, the parking lot is getting some much needed TLC. Next summer, the school is planning on repaving and re-striping the parking lot, which Mr. Kiser said should make traffic flow a lot smoother.

“That’s going to be a good way of re-organizing the traffic flow and the parking spots,” Mr. Kiser said. “It should help traffic flow a little better out there once they get all that done.”