Work on floor expected to take place in August

By Chad Koenen

Publisher

One of the most discussed building projects over the past few years will soon come to fruition at Henning School. 

During its regularly scheduled meeting last week, the Henning School Board approved a bid from Jwood Sports Flooring to install a new high school gym floor. The gym floor dates back approximately 60 years and the school district has been informed that the floor was nearing its end of life. 

The bid from Jwood was $182,000 and the company would be able to install the new floor this summer. The company expects to start and complete the work sometime in August. 

As part of their bid, Jwood will demo and dispose of the existing floor, install a new floor system and even install six new volleyball cover plates to allow two volleyball nets to be set up in the high school gym, as opposed to just one.

Henning School Superintendent Melissa Sparks said the company toured the Henning gym and met with Building and Maintenance Supervisor Brendan Hart, who also recommended the bid from Jwood. 

“They were out here very thoroughly and examined our space when they were here. I feel like they were really good to work with,” said Sparks.

Despite the recommendation, board members Casey Johnson and Andy Eckhoff questioned the lack of information on the bid itself and potential change orders that could come from the company. They both initially favored a higher bid from H2I Group that had a more detailed bid, but came at a higher 236,850 cost. H2I Group was planning for a summer 2026 installation. 

Due to the questions, Sparks called a representative from Jwood who walked the school board through the installation process, and answered questions that the school board had about both the company’s bid and the installation process as a whole. 

The representative said they are a small company and will not leave a job once they begin in order to complete the project on time. He also said the flooring will be a high quality product and they have installed high school gym floors across the state and into the Dakotas. 

“We’re not the type of company that gets (many) jobs going at a time. So when we say we are coming August 3 (for example) we are going to hit that mark and our guys are going to be there until the floor is installed and nailed and our sanding crew will come in right after,” he said. “I would say this job I am not seeing anything that is going to blind side us and I think it is going to run very smooth.”

Since the gym floor will not be installed until August there may be some disruptions to the volleyball practice schedule in August and a few early season volleyball games may be changed to ensure the new floor will be completed and all of the bleachers are put back in place. 

The school board also discussed potentially moving the water fountain in the gym and taking out the cement slab by the water fountain to install hardwood floor in its place. There was also a brief discussion about installing a movable basketball hoop on one of the walls so it would not interfere with the volleyball nets.

After speaking with the representative from Jwood Sports Flooring the school board unanimously approved moving forward with the new high school gym floor project. 

In other news

• Heard a presentation from members of the Henning trap team who shared some information about their team and thanked the board for the school district’s ongoing support of the popular sport. The trap team requested adjusting the school district’s contribution from $40 per student-athlete to $50 per student-athlete to help cover the cost of the sport and the state shoot in Alexandria.

• Accepted the following resignations: Tawny Thorson, Kevin Klever as bus driver, Lori Klever as head cook, Rachel Greenwaldt as C-squad volleyball coach, Grace Ellefson as gifted education coordinator and Mike Hepola as head girls basketball coach.

• Approved the following hirings: Teri Wogan and Gavin Christensen as summer rec staff, Bill Balfanz as summer food person, Alexis Froemming as middle school English teacher and the maternity leave for Rachel Greenwaldt. 

• Approved setting funds aside for employment separation benefits from the general fund into a separate account. Each employment group has qualified operation benefits based on sick leave balances. These benefits are estimated to have a current liability of approximately $223,582.69.

• Approved the purchase of service agreement for transportation of children and youth in foster placement. 

• Approved the renewal of United Health Care for health insurance. 

• Approved the application for cooperative sponsorship for boys hockey for the 2025-26 school year. The cooperative agreement includes Wadena-Deer Creek, Staples-Motley, Verndale, New York Mills, Sebeka, Parkers Prairie and Henning. 

• Heard summer rec numbers will be down a bit this year. Currently there are 16 kids registered for t-ball, 18 for toss ball, 14 boys registered for juniors, one boy signed up for minors and one boy signed up for majors, but he will play with the minors to give them more kids to form a team. There are currently two girls registered for juniors, three girls registered for minors and seven girls have signed up for majors. 

• Heard an update from the tech committee that recommended the purchase of 70 Google Chromebook touch, 30 Chromebooks, 100 Google Education licenses, a new 65” interactive TV and an 85” TV for the band room. The total cost for the items was estimated to be $33,712.50, which will be spent from the technology levy that is in its final year. The technology fund annually has a budget of $40,000 through the capital projects levy.

• Approved the 2025-26 calendar as presented. The first day of school will be on September 2, which is the day after Labor Day and the final day of school will be on Friday, May 22, which will also be graduation. Following past practice the plan is to have the final day of school prior to the Memorial Day weekend. 

• Heard a presentation from Sparks about the school district’s e-learning days it held for the first time earlier this school year. The results were mostly positive from parents and students in regards to access to materials and staff members throughout the day. Sparks said the staff members ranked the effectiveness of the e-learning day a bit lower than the school district would have liked, but will continue to change and adapt its e-learning process in the future.