Maintenance department hard at work during summer

It’s summer, but there’s still a lot of maintenance and upkeep going on around Sulphur Springs ISD.

Maintenance Director Dan Froneberger gave an update on what his department has been working on lately at the June school board meeting, held Tuesday, June 11.

The air conditioner for the SSHS multipurpose building has been replaced and the weight room is cool again. Triple Crown Roofing will come in and seal around the new unit to prevent leaks.

Froneberger recently met with the insurance adjuster regarding storm damage that occurred at some district buildings last week. He said he has not received the adjuster’s report yet, “but everything [the adjuster] looked at was very favorable to us.”

Froneberger said Tuesday was the first day that the weather was good enough for mowing the district’s open pastures. They will be mowed and baled very soon.

Three more new school buses have arrived, bring the total number purchased this year to eight. One of the new buses is at the repair shop in Tyler for an issue with the ignition. Maintenance workers are in the process of washing the entire fleet, two or three per day, to remove mold from the exterior roofs.

He also said that when the 2024-2025 school year starts, the district will go back to having bus riders gather at one corner on a route, rather than drivers stopping at every student’s house. “Buses now come in 71 or 77 passenger buses,” Froneberger said. “They’re getting away from the smaller length buses, so we’re not able to go down some of the roads we used to, especially when it’s dark, and on dead-end roads where the driver has to turn around. We’re having a lot of wrecks and mishaps with buses.”

Beginning with the coming school year, Froneberger said drivers would return to the “corners” pickup system, where students will gather and be dropped off at a designated spot as a group. This will result in less wear and tear on the buses, so they’ll last longer.

“When you think about it, you spend $125,000, $150,000 on a bus that’s good for 120,000 to 150,000 miles, that’s $1 per mile per bus,” he said. “We’re trying to do anything we can to increase the longevity [of the buses].”

All eight new buses ordered this year have been received, and five old buses have been demolished as required in order to receive state grant funds to pay for new school buses. The five buses were cut in half and the engines and transmissions irreparably damaged. The department is completing paperwork for a state grant that will reimburse SSISD for the five demolished buses. Adding the new buses helps decrease the average age of the SSISD bus fleet.

Froneberger purchased some carpet squares online to be used in two rooms at the administration building that received water damage, along with one room at Travis where the carpet was old and needed replacing. Installation of the carpet tiles was planned for later that week, as soon as someone could be sent to pick the tiles up in Ladonia.

Two glass cubicles will be installed on either side of the counselors’ office at SSHS, to provide them with more space.

Workers are installing intercoms in all outbuildings, which Froneberger said “are buildings that were never intended to be classrooms, so they didn’t have intercoms.” The intercom system is old, and it’s difficult to find parts for it anymore — the only place they’ve been able to find parts is on eBay, “and we’ve about exhausted all of those [sellers].

“When we have to add anything on a two-way system at the high school, we’re going to have to put in a new system — roughly about $100,000,” Froneberger said.

For the time being, Froneberger asked the service provider to put in loudspeakers, so those buildings can at least hear announcements. Occupants in those buildings will still have to use classroom phones or cell phones to call the office.

He also briefly mentioned graduation, which had to be moved from Gerald Prim Stadium to the Hopkins County Regional Civic Center arena due to weather. The entire stage area and seating had to be set up and taken down twice in two days, which was “rough” for his crew, but Froneberger said he believed Steeber made the right call.