Serving O'Brien & Clay Counties
Serving O'Brien & Clay Counties
H-M-S Elementary staff packs up for big move
Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn Elementary Principal Cathy Jochims tapes up boxes in the building's media center on May 6. Several staff members were on hand to pack for the impending move to the new elementary school, which is being built onto the existing high school in Hartley.
H-M-S Elementary secretary Deb Bleeker hands off a box to Britta Tewes last week.
Jason Vander Berg packs boxes in the back of a school bus.
Pallets, people, boxes, buses and heavy machinery all play important roles in moving a school.
With school closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only chairs and desks fill the halls at H-M-S Elementary.
Question: What do you do with school buses that aren't needed to transport students?
Answer: Use them as moving vans.
Since buses are not being used for their original purpose, they are now holding materials and equipment removed from Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn's elementary building until they can be moved into the new facility later this year.
Staff had been preparing for the move to the new building, but when onsite learning ended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the process was accelerated. The forced closure also sped up the timeline for the middle school facilities project. Students in grades 5-8 will be housed in the former elementary building next year while classroom construction and renovations take place in Sanborn.
"We anticipated working on it between now and June," said Elementary Principal Cathy Jochims. "When the middle school project sped up, we had to do it now."
In recent weeks teachers were busy sorting classroom materials into three groups: Items to be stored until the new elementary is finished; older items with monetary value that can be sold on an online auction; and outdated materials that could be discarded.
Jochims said that teachers took advantage of the process to get rid of unneeded instructional materials stored in file cabinets.
"It used to be everything had to have a master copy, but we don't need those anymore because they are stored electronically. We were able to clean up a lot of that stuff," she said.
Totes and cardboard boxes were collected to hold the items to be moved. Jochims said local stores were especially helpful in providing boxes.
Once sorting was finished, teachers and associates worked together to get everything loaded on buses parked on the playground.
"The staff did a great job," Jochims acknowledged.
She isn't sure whose idea it was to use the buses, but they fit the bill.
"It's an efficient use of the equipment we already have. We got quite a bit of stuff in the buses," she noted.
All of it will stay on them until the new elementary facility is ready for occupancy, sometime in early August.
Custodial staff has also been busy getting the current elementary ready for new occupants. Janitors cleaned rooms and polished floors now, rather than in July, as classrooms were being emptied.
Staff is now focusing their attention on online learning until school ends on May 21. Teachers will then evaluate student progress during 2019-20 and develop curriculum plans to be included in H-M-S's return to school plan for next year. Jochims is confident that online instruction offered this spring and anything that needs to be offered next year will keep students on track in their educational process.
