HURON - The Huron School Board of Education met Tuesday evening to discuss parking issues and traffic patterns during construction at the high school and middle school buildings, as well as review change orders for the handrail project at Huron Arena.
High School Principal Mike Radke presented to the board plans for student parking, parent pick-up and drop-off, available entrances during the time of construction as well as areas for storing materials among other issues.
“At our meeting this morning we discussed possible staging areas for the construction. The contractor, architect and all the subcontractors were there, they are going to take over most of the front of the building, not just where the construction is happening but also for the staging and storing of the materials,” Radke explained. “This leads us to two issues; how do we get students that come in the east parking lot into the building in the morning and morning and afternoon pick-up and drop-off. When it comes to pick-up and drop-off we are going to ask that parents use the west side of the building using the southern most driveway to enter and the northern most driveway to leave. For non-school events, the door by the band will be open as well as the main office door so patrons will be able to come in either of those entrances.”
It was also noted that the front entrance is currently monitored between 7 and 8 a.m. to allow student access to those who park in the east parking lot.
“The front of the school on 18th street traditionally has a lot of parking for evening events but nothing during the day, we are actually going to talk to the city about allowing the construction workers to park there because that would really free up the pressure of the parking lots. If we are able to gain permission for that, we may be able to relieve some pressure of the student parking during the day by putting construction workers on 18th Street,” said Superintendent Terry Nebelsick.

More discussion is to come on this subject and those who wish to view this presentation may view the meeting online at the Huron School District website or via the school YouTube channel.
Business Manager Kelly Christopherson gave a construction update for the portion of the project that relates to the handrails at Huron Arena.
“Change order number one is a decrease of contract price of $258.20. It is made up of three different things that happened over the course of the project,” noted Christopherson. “The change order added $2,948.98 to the cost of the project because of the two upper corners in the arena, we were going to mount those handrails to the wall they decided it would be better to mount them to the floor, all handrails are mounted to the floor.”
It was also highlighted that an angled edge was added to smooth out some rough edges in other areas where handrails were put in, which added a cost of $1,474.49.
“The third one was a credit to us because of the way they altered all of the handrails, they thought they were going to have to mount the handrails into the floor with bolts and then weld them to the back of the steps for additional strength. That turned out to not be necessary because the handrails are very study without taking that extra measure so we deducted that and got credit for $4,681.67. The arena handrail and painting project is substantially complete,
the high school and middle school construction is getting ready to get geared up, they will start on the front of the high school and that will be the first action that you see probably within a week,” noted Christopherson.
The board appointed the Associated School Boards of South Dakota (ASBSD) Legislative Action Network (LAN) member as School Board Vice President Tim Van Berkum was nominated to continue his position.
In new business, the board also reviewed in detail ASBSD legislative resolutions for policy changes as well as standing positions for the year 2020.
The next board meeting is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 25, in the Instructional Planning Center at Huron Arena.