Friday, August 7, 2015

A message from PRINCEVILLE COMMUNITY UNIT SCHOOL DISTRICT 326

Dear Students, Staff, and Parents,
Due to delays in construction at the Princeville High School, the Board of Education has modified this year’s school calendar. School will now start for students on Tuesday, September 8th. Moving the start of school back two weeks necessitated changes to the rest of the school calendar as well. Basically, we took 2 days from Winter Break and 3 days from Spring Break. We then added an additional 5 days to the end of the year. We also needed to modify the end of quarter dates, a few early out dates, teacher institute dates, and parent/teacher conference dates.
There are a few issues that made beginning school as originally scheduled impossible:
  • Power Lines: The power lines running between the baseball field and the “new” gym are too close to the construction site. The Board is still looking at an economical solution to this problem, but some of the solutions originally considered could increase the cost of the solution considerably if school is in session (renting a generator large enough to run the entire school while construction is completed). We may have found a workaround to this problem and will know more by Tuesday’s Board Meeting.
  • Front entrance and band corridor doors: These doors will not be completed until (best case scenario), August 29th. Without these doors, there would not be a secure entrance, and most importantly, a viable fire exit.
  • Emergency lighting: Some of the emergency lighting fixtures are currently on back order and, without those lights, pose a significant safety issue.
  • Science casework: The casework (cabinets/tables/countertops) will not be delivered until the end of August. Once delivered, the furniture would need to be installed and the plumber/electrician will need time to install water/electrical connections.
We have had some “interesting” weather that has delayed some of our outside utility and site work, along with some unforeseen sewer issues. However, overall, the construction process has gone fairly smoothly. We are very disappointed that we won’t be able to start school as scheduled, but we want to ensure that our scheduled renovation is as complete as possible, the buildings are appropriately cleaned/waxed, and, most importantly, our buildings are safe.
We apologize for any inconvenience the change in our start date has posed, but when everyone realizes all the work that was accomplished this summer, I think all will agree that it was worth it!
A copy of the new District Calendar is attached. We hope to have the online calendar updated by the end of the week (www.princeville326.org). Please review the new calendar prior to scheduling vacations and keep in mind that we may need to utilize emergency days (snow days) which could push the end date to as late as June 17th. We have also posted this letter, along with a copy of the new District Calendar (2nd and 3rd page).
Thank you.


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