Final day of school for students is May 15

By Chad Koenen

Publisher

School is still in session for a few more weeks, but an expansive construction and remodeling project at Henning School is already underway. Currently, the high school gym is closed to students and the public as it is being cleaned and resurfaced. Soon the gym will once again reopen, just in time for graduation, before it becomes home to countless staff member belongings as the Henning School District prepares for the largest school remodeling project in almost 30 years.

This summer the Henning School District will undergo a $5.8 building and maintenance project at the school.

As part of the building project, the school district will be replacing its aging HVAC system, replacing elementary windows, a portion of the roof, upgrading the special education bathroom, as well as a variety of other items that have been identified by the school board. 

Across the road, the school district will demolish a white garage to make way for a new parking lot near the bus garages on Marshall Ave. The new parking lot will feature 28 spaces with two handicapped accessible spaces. There will be two drive-in/out lanes, which engineers have said will help with traffic flow in and out of the parking lot. New lighting will also be installed in the new parking lot.

  In order to give contractors some additional time to get the project completed, school will be let out over one week early this year and will not start until at least September 9 in the fall, about a week later than normal.

“It is an intense project. We are trying to do a lot in one summer,” said Henning School Superintendent Melissa Sparks.

Beginning May 14, staff members will begin moving out of their classrooms and bring items from their rooms to a 12×12’ spot in one of the two gyms in the school. Very little will remain in each room as almost the entire school will be touched in some way as part of the construction project this summer. The move will continue on Wednesday, May 15 which will also be the final day of school for students in Henning. 

“Anything that cannot be shrink wrapped in their cabinets needs to go to that spot (in the gym),” said Sparks. 

Throughout the summer, Henning School will be closed to the general public. A small portion of the fitness center equipment will be moved to the bus garage and the school administration and athletes will be transported to Bertha-Hewitt School as part of a rental agreement Henning worked out with that school district to utilize their 1953 gym.

“There is no way we can move all of the weight room equipment, but we are going to move essential pieces to the bus garage so students will have somewhere they can work out this summer,” said Sparks. 

In addition to the weight room equipment, the district office staff and administration will be moving their offices to the Landmark Center in downtown Henning as part of another rental agreement for offices spaces in that facility. The office will be open from  Monday through Thursday. 

In order to protect the safety of the public, Sparks said the playground behind the school will also be closed to the general public. With the large amount of heavy machinery and equipment at the school this summer, Sparks said it would not be safe to allow children to be on the green space and playground equipment behind the school.

“Just looking at where the construction equipment will be at I don’t want to take the chance of kids getting hurt, or in the way,” she said. 

Sparks said the plan is to start school in the fall on Monday, Sept. 9, which would be about a week later than normal. She said the project as a whole will improve indoor air quality with a new HVAC system, something she said improves the educational experience for students. In recent years, the HVAC system has begun to fail and has resulted in temperature swings from one part of the building to the next. The hope is the new HVAC system will eliminate those differences in the building. 

The project comes on the heels of a pair of failed referendum attempts. 

In November of 2022  the first question of an expansive school building referendum that would have addressed everything from enhancing elementary classrooms to creating a new entrance at the back of the school and improving indoor air quality failed by just 26 votes. A second question that included repairs to bathrooms and constructing a new gym failed by just 91 votes.

In May of 2023, school district voters denied a similar two-part question by a margin of 739-497 for the first question and 765-470 for the second question. The two-part question was similar to the previous November and had a total price tag of approximately $27.1 million. 

As a result, the school district opted for an indoor air quality and parking lot abatement project to replace the HVAC system at the school and construct a new parking lot. The projects can be approved by the board and does not need voter approval to be implemented. 

The project is scheduled to be completed as soon as the end of August.