BACK TO SCHOOL 2023: Construction still underway at schools as first day approaches

A great deal of progress has been made on construction projects at various schools in the Hardin County and Elizabethtown Independent districts.

John Stith, chief operations officer of Hardin County Schools, said the biggest project going on right now is the reconstruction of Central Hardin High School in Cecilia.

While the school will be able to use the new auxiliary gym when school starts, the large gym needs some rework done on the flooring, and Stith said the school likely won’t be able to use it as a gym until around Sept. 1.

The parking lot in front of Central Hardin is not yet ready, but Stith said officials are hoping to have it ready by Labor Day.

Central Hardin’s parking lot by the big gym has student parking and the bus loop ready but also will be used as parking for construction.

Parent drop off at Central Hardin will be the same as it was last year, but the main entryway will be redone after the parking lot is complete and will be swapped with the entrance by the tennis courts for about a month if weather permits, Stith said.

Classrooms by the gym at Central Hardin essentially are ready, but Stith said the classrooms on the other side of the new entryway likely won’t be ready any sooner than May of 2024.

At John Hardin High School, the grass on the football field was converted to synthetic turf and a similar project is underway at North Hardin High School with the Trojans on the road for the first portion of the season to allow time for completion.

“The turf portion is done so they’ll be able to use that for football this fall,” Stith said of John Hardin. “We still have some work going on past the endzone area on one end of the field and that will probably be going on into September.”

A greenhouse project also is set to begin construction on Aug. 14 at John Hardin High School with Stith saying the materials for the greenhouse arrived this week.

Other work included an HVAC and lighting renovation at Woodland Elementary School that started as soon as school got out, Stith said.

“That’s a tremendous amount of work to try and get done in a two-month period,” Stith said. “We were able to have our open house, and we have air on in just about every part of the building.”

Chase Goff, assistant superintendent of Elizabethtown Independent Schools, said a lot of facility work has been going on this summer rather than major construction projects.

“We try to take care of the floors in the summer, update our landscaping and pressure washing, and we’ve done a lot of painting,” Goff said.

The district’s main construction priority for the future is doing a major renovation at T.K. Stone Middle School.

“It’ll be a full renovation and probably some additional construction that will go on,” Goff said. “We’ve started working with architects on the project, and I think our goal would be to break ground by next spring or next summer.”

While a major HVAC project was completed this summer at Elizabethtown High School, the building still will need some renovation to be done, Goff said.

“We would like to be able to increase some space there at the high school,” Goff said. “We continue to grow and there are several programs, like health sciences, that require certain specifications on space.”

Both Stith and Goff said the maintenance and custodial staff were incredible this summer in what Stith referred to as “their ability to get such a large amount of work done in such a short amount of time.”

“They’ve decreased our work order turnaround by almost a day, and that’s something I know they’ve really been working hard in,” Stith said. “I’m proud of their effort to not only provide great service with a friendly smile but also spend a little time working on their process and procedures, and how they’re able to get to items faster than they were.”

“We’ve done some deep cleaning in all of our spaces that can only be done when kids are not going to be in the building,” Goff said. “We’ve also done quite a bit of painting, specifically at T.K. Stone, and done some outside and inside branding at the middle and high school with signage and banners.”

Connor Wilkerson can be reached at 270-505-1413 or [email protected].

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