The Eastern Pulaski School Corporation will likely wait another year to upgrade its parking lots and sidewalks.
Superintendent Dan Foster said six contractors had initially expressed interest in doing the work, but various challenges caused that number to dwindle. “One contractor got another couple projects in the meantime and withdrew, and then a couple of the contractors were waiting for their concrete bids, which did not come in,” he explains. “So consequently, we ended up with one bid from E & B Paving. Their bid was along the lines of the projected costs.”
During a special session Monday, the Eastern Pulaski School Board decided to reject that bid. Foster says the corporation will probably try again next year. “It looks like, unfortunately, we’re not going to get some of that work done this summer,” he said, “but hopefully, giving it a little bit more time and getting started a little earlier, we’ll have a better chance to get more than one bid for next summer.” The school board hopes to redo the 11 acres of asphalt in the corporation’s parking lots, as well as repair sidewalks and curbs.
It’s one of several projects planned with money left over from Eastern Pulaski’s recent building renovations. While the paving work is on hold for now, the school board selected contractors for some of the other projects Monday, including upgrading some flooring and repainting lockers. Meanwhile, cooler/freezer units in both the elementary and middle school/high school cafeterias will be replaced with money from the corporation’s cafeteria fund.
Foster adds there are a few other project ideas still being considered by the school board, such as updates to the locker rooms used by the football and other sports teams. “We had talked about perhaps just rearranging the lockers to get a better visibility for supervision. It’s not well-designed for that right now, so it does cause some supervision issues,” he explained. “And then there was discussion, ‘Well, if we do that, do we do the restrooms and the showers, as well?’ And then you take that and say, ‘Well, how much would it cost to built a different building at the south end of campus, kind of doing the same things?'”
Foster says more quotes for various projects will be presented for the school board’s approval at its next regular meeting.
