August 2018 - What Happens Over the Summer?

By Rob Ross, Director of Maintenance & Grounds, Perrysburg Schools

From physical education classes, community facility use, planning menus, hiring, strategic planning and registration of new students, there is no shortage of excitement in our school district over the summer. Maintenance, custodial and grounds are no exception. There are a range of activities taking place, from replacement and repair projects to deep cleaning and preventative maintenance.

Projects funded by the Permanent Improvement Levy

On November 3, 2015, Perrysburg School District voters approved a 1.9-mill, five-year permanent improvement levy renewal. Perrysburg Schools first passed a permanent improvement levy in 1980 and has renewed it every five years since then.

One of the major permanent improvement levy projects this summer involves upgrades at Perrysburg Junior High School. The entrance areas and hallways on the first and second floors will have new ceiling tiles and grids installed for better sound control, the lighting will be replaced with brighter LED units that are also more efficient, classroom door frames and walls will be painted, the student entrance doors will be replaced and new indoor/outdoor carpet will be installed in the entryway. Thirty classrooms will also receive technology upgrades.

Another major project this summer is the replacement of bleachers at Widdel Field at Steinecker Stadium. The former home side bleachers will remain in place but they will become the visitors’ side. The former visitors’ bleachers are being removed and replaced with new bleachers, which will become the new home side.

At Fort Meigs Elementary School, the 25-year-old carpet in the 200-wing will be replaced. Formerly continuous carpeting through each room, this area will now be replaced with carpet squares, so that if a section becomes worn or damaged, those squares can be replaced without needing to replace the entire section of carpet.

While our mechanics at the bus garage have kept our maintenance vehicle fleet going strong, two of the oldest of the five vehicles will be replaced this summer/fall – a 1998 truck and a 1997 van. A floor scrubber is also being replaced at PHS.

Repairs

For roofs and parking lots, a maintenance schedule is followed that rotates throughout the school district. Concrete repairs are scheduled for Fort Meigs Elementary School and the bus garage, ongoing HVAC repairs will take place as needed and any roofing leaks that have been identified will be repaired.

Furniture

As our school district continues to grow, we find ourselves converting workspaces and storage areas to classrooms. This typically means we will need to acquire additional furniture. One procedure we follow before ordering furniture is to coordinate between the schools to see if another school may have furniture that is not in use that could be relocated. For the additional kindergarten classroom at Fort Meigs, there was enough furniture in storage at Woodland that could be moved that an additional furniture purchase was not necessary.

Cleaning

Our team of 45 custodians in the school district performs team cleaning over the summer. Some evening shift employees move to working during days so that they can move swiftly through the school and deep clean all areas as a team — pulling everything out of each classroom, scrubbing and re-waxing the floors and detail cleaning. This includes a thorough cleaning of each chair, table, walls, window treatments, etc.

Grounds

The grounds team continues to maintain our over 200 acres over the summer (including mowing approximately 60 acres regularly), much of our needed tree removal is performed in-house, shrubs and landscaping are maintained and playground mulch is replaced on a rotation schedule.

In all the work we do, but particularly with grounds, we strive to strike a balance between keeping costs as low as possible while still being good neighbors and having well-maintained facilities that embody our community pride.

I am so proud of our Maintenance, Grounds and Custodial Team Members, who work very hard all summer to ensure our facilities are ready for faculty and students to return in the fall to a safe, clean and secure place so they are able to focus on ensuring all students achieve their greatest potential.