ABOVE: Daikin contracted workers Nick Kurz, left, and Kevin Mullen take a piece of the water heating and cooling systems down from the Fairmont Elementary School ceiling during work on Thursday.

FAIRMONT – While the term “schoolwork” is usually reserved for the school year, plenty of work is going on at the schools in the summer.

Every summer, Director of Buildings and Grounds Tyler Garrison said the custodial staff are hard at work doing what would be cumbersome to do during the school year.

“They come in and clean every classroom,” he said. “Every hallway, every space, top to bottom, from ceilings all the way down, including light fixtures. They scrub walls and all the furniture in the classrooms. They move all the furniture out of each classroom or space, then they come back in and scrub and wax the floors.”

There are six elementary and seven high school custodial workers who are tasked with getting the whole building done before the school year begins. Then there’s the work of four full-time maintenance workers, a part-time master electrician and a mower that help to take care of everything else.

“We do lawn work all summer long,” Garrison said. “In the buildings, we do some painting in-house. We do a lot of our air handlers, maintenance work, changing filters and greasing units. We do a lot of plumbing repairs, wall repairs and things that we can’t get at during the school year. All my guys out at the maintenance shop have a list they try to perform all summer long, making repairs.”

On top of the regular work, there are special projects every year to make fixes or changes. Garrison said project work is more often done by contractors, depending on the scale. This year, 12 projects have been undertaken and completed so far.

The elementary school had parking lot repairs, replacement of two exterior door entrances, sandblasting and repainting of the canopy entrance, painting of multiple classrooms and a large commercial dishwasher was replaced.

The high school had two concession stand floors replaced with epoxy, replacement of a welding shop overhead door and two main runs of flooring and painting of three hallways and multiple classrooms.

Both buildings had heat pumps and isolation valves replaced in the boiler rooms, interior gym bleacher systems maintained with parts for operation and cement areas redone when needed.

While a dozen projects sounds like a lot, these are smaller projects that were planned out to happen this year as a part of the continuous 10-year plan Garrison creates with Superintendent Andy Traetow and the school board.

“I’m usually about a year ahead on it because finding contractors nowadays is harder than it used to be with workloads,” Garrison said.

For instance, next year will have fewer projects because there is a larger undertaking, resurfacing of the tennis courts.

In addition to what is planned, there are also emergency projects that come up unexpectedly. Over the Fourth of July, one of the walk-in freezers at the elementary school broke down. Food had to be transferred immediately to avoid spoilage while the problem was found and repairs were made.

Before the school year ends, plans are to install new signage at the elementary school, continue taking down ash trees at both schools, replace condensing units and walk-in freezer/cooler controls at the elementary and add smaller scoreboards on the elementary and high school football practice fields.

Being able to get everything done in the span of one summer is no easy feat, and Garrison said all the custodial, maintenance and contracted workers who make it possible deserve the credit.

“I’ve got such a good crew and I am very happy with all the work they do,” he said. “When we’re looking at the majority of our buildings being 1950s to 70s builds, it takes a lot to keep them nice. I think our guys do an outstanding job with that.”