ABOVE: The remodel of the Fairmont High School weight room is almost complete. The remodel was made possible through disbursement of COVID relief funds and features new equipment and ventilation.

FAIRMONT– While teachers and students at Fairmont High School are off for the summer the district’s facilities staff are hard at work preparing for when students return in the fall.

“A lot of people ask what do you guys do? Do you have the summer off like the other staff? No, this is our busy time,” said Director of Building and Grounds Tyler Garrison.

Each summer district employees perform comprehensive maintenance at Fairmont schools and work on dozens of building improvement projects.

“Our custodians are going through the whole building and they clean out each classroom from ceiling fixtures all the way down. They scrub all the furniture, remove everything from the room, redo the floors, and then move everything back in. Every place in each building gets covered and cleaned,” said Garrison.

Starting in the spring and continuing through the summer Garrison has 175 projects spread across the district he hopes to have finished before school resumes. So far roughly 80 of them have been completed.

One of the more significant projects being worked on is the construction of a new vehicle storage shed located at the north end of the high school campus. The shed will contain six vehicle bays, four of which will hold vehicles used to transport students and staff to events and activities. The remaining bays will be used to store a food service vehicle and a technology maintenance vehicle.

Other projects in the works at the high school include completing the visitors bleachers and press box at the football stadium, a storage building for the auto shop, adding handicap accessible doors at the main entrance, redoing the horseshoe pits and installing shot clocks in the gymnasium.

While Garrison is planning for nearly all of the district’s projects to be completed by the time students return in the fall, shortages of materials and logistical difficulties have complicated some processes.

“A lot of the plumbing repairs we make, I can do an order and I’ll just get a partial order (delivered), and it’s three or four months before I get some parts. It’s been very tricky that way. Our cleaning supplies and all our paper products I (order) once a year and I typically order them long before the summer starts so that they’re in place and we know they’re here (in time), because we’ve had issues with getting those items in the past with COVID. I think things are turning around,” said Garrison.

Installation of projects at the high school made possible with state ESSER funds continue. The remodel of the weight room is almost complete while the science classroom has received new monitor hookups and is in the process of being painted. The new common area furniture, as well as new fixtures for the science classroom are still in the works.