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Much of the steel and concrete is in place for Celina City Schools' new grades 7-12 building. Facilities director Phil Metz noted three stories plus roof steel are erected for the school building, trusses are up for the competition gymnasium, and walls have gone up for the auxiliary gym.
CELINA - Work is coming along nicely on the grades 7-12 building going up on East Wayne Street, with much of the steel and steel roof now in place, facilities director Phil Metz told Celina school board members at Monday night's regular meeting.
"Just making great progress," he said about the new building that is on schedule to be finished and ready for students at the start of the 2027-28 school year. "We get a week's worth of nice weather, it's only going to take off from there."
Rattling off a litany of completed items, Metz pointed to the trusses for the competition gymnasium that will contain seating for 2,000.
"If you look at the big competition gym, you can see the trusses are up there finally," he enthused. "They were adding the pre-cast slabs over … (what will be) a concession stand and Spike's Place coffee shop, that's kind of out in front of all that."
The three stories of the new school building are taking definite shape, too.
"We've got slabs on grade, so a lot of the ground floors have already been poured, and they started pouring slabs on deck. So second floor's poured, third floor is decked out and they now have roof steel up," he said. "So three stories plus roof steel … a lot of that's in."
Crews are also finishing up the "the last of anything underground," Metz added.
The walls have also gone up for the auxiliary gym.
Celina City Schools' new grades 7-12 building is on schedule to be finished and ready for students at the start of the 2027-28 school year.
Demolition of the existing Celina High School building will occur in the spring of 2027 and any final site construction will be completed in late spring/early summer of 2027, according to the building project timeline.
Over at the new Celina Elementary School on West Logan Street, the last piece of playground equipment was installed at the end of last week.
"They're going to come in Thursday and add some additional mulch," Metz noted. "It was a little bit low, so for it to be safe, they kind of roped it off."
Volleyball poles were installed last week and basketball poles are set to go in soon. Once the finishing touches are applied, the play area will be doubled in size.
"It's going to be phenomenal. It's a really nice area for those kids," he said.
Meanwhile, grading work will take place to facilitate parking lots.
"Doing some tweaking. Again, a lot of dirt to be moved over there yet, to get everything graded down for parking lots and driveways coming in over the summer," he added.
The overall building project, which also involved a new 115,000-square-foot addition for grades pre-K through 3 and the revamping of the Celina Intermediate School for grades 4-6, is a partnership between the school district and OFCC.
It was budgeted at $106.6 million but ballooned to $121.7 million due to a host of factors.
Board members on Monday night also accepted the retirements of second grade teacher Deb Lehman, effective May 31, after 33 years; custodians Kim Waterman, effective June 30, after 17 years and Jetta Mutter, effective April 30, after 16 years; teacher's assistant Deb Gehle, effective May 31, after 15 years; and special education director Tracey Dammeyer, effective June 30, after 34 years.
"We are seeing more retirements coming in, which we're happy for our employees and at the same time a bit saddened for us," said superintendent Brooke Gessler. "We have a lot of years added up among folks, and we appreciate their dedication to our district, and they are hard to replace."
Gessler noted that her administration plans to rehire Dammeyer after she retires. A public meeting on the matter will be held at 6 p.m. May 19 in the high school lecture hall.
"So folks have a chance to come and share their thoughts regarding that," she said. "These are steps that we have to take by law, but I'm certainly hoping that the board will rehire her because Tracy is a true asset to our district and our special education department."
Board member Mark Huelsman remarked that such hires are beneficial to the district as the employee in question gets to begin drawing pension and medical benefits while the school is able to retain them at a reduced cost.
Celina City Schools' new grades 7-12 building is on schedule to be finished and ready for students at the start of the 2027-28 school year.
Celina City Schools' new grades 7-12 building is on schedule to be finished and ready for students at the start of the 2027-28 school year.
