Progress has been made on the Columbia High School renovation project in the lead-up to the new school year, with major work done on the outside of the building to prepare for actual construction and the district recently hosting an open house to provide more information to the community.

The Columbia School Board also took a major step at its latest meeting, approving a $22,438,453 bid package for the project’s first phase.

As previously reported, the CHS expansion project consists of three phases. The first will add a number of classrooms and administrative spaces as well as an auditorium. Phase two will add a competition gym, and phase three will see general renovations and upgrades made to the existing CHS facilities such as increasing the size of the cafeteria.

Columbia Superintendent of Schools Chris Grode has previously said the overall project is expected to cost under $40 million, with the community’s tax rate expected to stay flat thanks to the district’s sale of bonds and generally strong fiscal position.

Given the dollar amount of just under $22.5 million, the approval of the phase one bid package was certainly the largest item on the agenda for the board Thursday night, which unanimously approved the bid.

Columbia School Board President Greg Meyer spoke positively about the bidding process, as did Grode and Ben Evelsizer, who attended the meeting as a representative of general contractor Poettker Construction.

“The solicitation was very well done,” Meyer said. “Our response was overwhelming, and we got a lot of competitive bids, so it really kept our prices down.”

Regarding the bids, Meyer provided the Republic-Times with a list detailing items contained within the bid package.

Among the larger items contributing to the $22.5 million price tag were the electrical bid awarded to Lowry Electric at $4.6 million, the general trades bid awarded to Litteken Construction at $3.2 million, the concrete bid awarded to Fenix Construction Co. at $2.7 million and the structural steel bid awarded to Nix Industrial for $3.1 million.

Following the approval of this bid package, board member Adam Hemken clarified to the public that, though the board had previously approved moving forward with phase one of the project, it decided to conduct a separate vote for the spending.

“We approved the phase one before,” Hemken said, “but the methodology we’re using, any time we’re then actually spending the money, we have to come back and do this again to authorize the expenditure, if you will.”

Also relating to the CHS project, the district hosted an open house at the school on Aug. 6, allowing members of the public to check out floor plans and renderings for the renovations as well as ask questions.

Around two dozen community members attended the event, with many questions relating to parking and traffic. Columbia City Administrator Doug Brimm and CHS Principal Brian Reeves also hopped in to field some of the questions alongside Grode.

As Grode summarized at the school board meeting, responses at the open house were broadly positive, though the key concerns centered around traffic as folks are asked to enter the high school campus from the entrance on Veterans Parkway while Columbia Middle School pick-up and drop-off will continue to come from Route 3.

In his superintendent’s report, Grode alluded to some questions asked at the open house regarding traffic, with one individual having asked about the possibility of an officer directing traffic given how congested and slow the left turn from Veterans Parkway to Route 3 can be.

The possibility of a lane expansion was also entertained at the open house, though Grode and Brimm said the Illinois Department of Transportation has been contacted and does not seem to view it as necessary.

“When you watch what’s going on, you feel everyone’s pain, but the students are there on time, and everybody gets to school on time, people zipper in,” Grode said. “It works. So IDOT doesn’t see the accidents, doesn’t see the delays that would warrant a third lane. That said, we’re always trying to make it better, but there is going to be the first couple of weeks, us watching very closely about how we’re transporting, how we’re moving, how it’s working and then what needs to be changed or modified.”

Grode further urged parents and students to observe the district’s requested parking and pick-up/drop-off routes – a map of these routes is available on the district website at the “High School Construction” tab on the menu at the bottom of the screen.

“I just ask everybody to have patience with us during the morning commutes and at the end of school,” Grode said.

In other agenda items, the board approved the 2024-25 budget hearing date for its Sept. 19 meeting at the usual start time of 7 p.m.

“We are currently pushing those numbers,” Grode said. “You take your last year’s budgets and you kind of roll them over and massage them as needed based on your projects and your increases and whatnot.”

The budget is set to be on display starting Aug. 18.

The consent agenda at the top of the meeting contained a substantial number of personnel items, with six resignations – including one future retirement – seven employments of educational support personnel, one new certified personnel in a high school math teacher and six extra-curricular assignments.

Following an executive session at the end of the meeting, the board also approved Khourtney Miller as the new assistant principal at CMS.

During her assistant superintendent’s report, Amanda Ganey gave shout-outs to the trio – Reeves, district administrative assistant Kimberly Johnson and district director of technology services Trent Mehaffey –  which has helped greatly with the implementation of the district’s Skyward software for registration and other purposes.

Ganey also briefly spoke about collaboration between districts in Monroe and Randolph counties which is particularly meant to benefit early childhood activity.

“Early childhood I think is something that is foundational to the success of education, and what we’re doing is we’re bringing both counties together and we’re sharing our resources and communicating that to the parents to help with anything they might need, specifically with early childhood,” Ganey said.