WESTON, WI (WSAU) — The DC Everest School Board has elected Larry Schaefer as their next president, tasking him with leading the district through nearly $60 million in upgrades to all nine district buildings over the next three years.
Schaefer says work on the improvements will begin this summer, but don’t expect to see noticeable improvements until the fall of 2019. “We have to do the engineering first. That’ll take a while because you have to drag out the drawings of all the existing electrical and plumbing, so we will not be doing major tasks this summer.” He says the “low-hanging-fruit” type projects such as changing out lights. “The real big work isn’t going to start till next year.”
He adds that some of the improvements are needed for buildings to bring them up-to-date with today’s standards in areas such as accessibility or security. “Our buildings [date back to] 1953, 1976, 1979. When those schools were built who would have thought we would have the security things we have today?” Heating and ventilating, ADA compliance, and plumbing issues also populate the laundry list. “It’s a lot of changes in nine buildings, we have our work to do.” He adds that it wouldn’t surprise him if some of the work takes four years to complete.”
The other time-consuming factor is the small construction window that contractors will have to deal with, because the bulk of the work must be done in the off-months. “We can’t shut down, it’s go like crazy for three months. Of course when you do remodeling there can always be a surprise too, so hopefully we won’t run into any of those.”
Schaefer adds that keeping the school’s technology up-to-date is also an ongoing challenge for the leaders. The board is currently looking at replacing some of the student’s iPads. “We’ve sold some of the ones we have and bought some newer, upgraded ones. Changing out those iPads and managing all that IT and making sure it works will be a task.” The school maintains a 1-to-1 ratio of iPads to students.
“It’s the world our students are graduating into, so they have to be technologically savvy, I’m just learning it myself,” Schafer added with a chuckle.
Schaefer is a retired Senior Project Manager for Siemens Industry. His term on the board runs through 2021.
