MINGO JUNCTION - Custodial staff members at Indian Creek Junior High School are performing a "summer break down" of the building for the last time.
According to Principal John Belt, if all goes as planned the staff will be preparing to move into the new junior high school building next summer.
"The custodial staff does a break down each year to clean and sterilize each classroom, including getting graffiti and gum off of each desk, moving all of the furniture from each room and sterilizing the walls, floors, windows and ledges before everything is moved back in," he explained. "The gym, library, cafeteria and office complex also get cleaned. The bleachers in the gym are serviced and cleaned and the floor is repolished."
Article Photos
Jess Looman
SUMMER?BREAK?DOWN — Myra Dunfee and Ray Blackburn, above, members of the Indian Creek Junior High School custodial staff, recently worked to clean the entire building during the staff’s “summer break down,” in which all classrooms are cleaned. According to Principal John Belt, if all goes according to plan, the staff and students will move to the new middle school by fall of 2012.
Belt said the project takes nearly the whole summer to complete.
"There are three full-time staff members who work on the project along with one summer helper," he relayed. "Normally it takes them the whole summer to finish and they begin 10 minutes after the kids leave on the last day."
The building, formerly Mingo Junction High School, opened in 1929 and has served as home for the district's seventh- and eighth-grade pupils.
Construction for the new Indian Creek Middle School project began in early November 2010 and is on track to be completed by fall of 2012, Belt said.
The project is a result of a levy approved by the votes in the November 2008 election. The levy amount was 2.2 mills for construction, plus an additional 1.25 mills for maintenance and permanent improvements for a total of 3.45 mills. The total cost of the project is $17 million and is being partly funded by the Ohio School Facilities Commission.
When completed, the middle school will house pupils in grades six, seven and eight.
The building will include three wings for each grade, an up-to-date classroom setting and technology, a 3,000-square-foot library, computer labs, a reading room and a cafetorium. The facility also will be equipped with security cameras, a separate event entrance and parking lot and a state-of-the-art kitchen.
(Looman can be contacted at jlooman@heraldstaronline.com.)
