Pueblo D70 bond update: Crews tidy up Mesa-area facilities as return to school approaches
Despite temperatures around 100 degrees, over 60 Pueblo County High School football players spent their Tuesday afternoon spreading mulch with rakes, shovels and push brooms to help prepare a brand-new playground at South Mesa Elementary, 23701 Preston Road.
The playground, paid for by a Pueblo County School District 70 bond passed by voters in 2020, meets Americans with Disabilities Act standards and was installed further away from the South Mesa Elementary building to assist with drainage. Improvements to the school, which include the playground, new heating and cooling systems, a replaced sidewalk on the north side of the building and a new roof, comprise over $3.9 million of the district's $75 million bond.
South Mesa Elementary Principal Shad Glenn said the school may not have been able to afford the playground without volunteers coming in to help spread mulch. His wife, Tiffany, recommended having football players help out, so Glenn contacted Pueblo County High School Head Coach Ramon Enriquez. Around 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, the entire team, freshmen to seniors, showed up to volunteer.
"We are beyond excited to present the new playground to the students and community of South Mesa," Glenn said. "The whole project has been a total team effort by many different entities within our community which started with the citizens that voted in favor of the bond initiative."
While teachers at South Mesa Elementary were not able to return to their classrooms on Wednesday with the rest of the district, construction debris from bond projects inside the school will be cleaned in time for students and staff to return on Aug. 10.
"We're going to be stripping and waxing floors," said Michael Gilbert, Willdan Group superintendent for the project. "We're doing final cleans ... We're going to be giving them their finished opening project by the morning of Monday (Aug. 8). We may need the weekend, but right now our schedule doesn't even need the weekend."
South Mesa Elementary will open in time for the first day of school, but two Mesa-area middle schools in Pueblo D70 will have late starts. Vineland Middle School, 1132 36th Lane, is about a week behind South Mesa Elementary in the construction process. Pleasant View Middle School, 23600 Everett Road, is about a week behind Vineland Middle School.
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Vineland Middle School will open for teacher workdays on Aug. 15-16. Sixth-grade students will have a transition day on Aug. 17. All students will have a full instruction day on Aug. 18. At Pleasant View Middle School, all students will have their first day of school on Aug. 24.
Pueblo County School District 70 has spent over $25 million worth of voter-approved bond funds as of Jun. 30. Outside of Vineland Middle School and Pleasant View Middle School, other bond construction projects will not conflict with the district's Aug. 10 start date.
"We're gonna get some paving down at County High School," Bond Project Manager Ted Ortiviz said. "We've got (a) roof going on over at the Rye High School, just a number of smaller projects. We got interior work at Pueblo West High School. All of that's tracking on time and on budget."
Pueblo Chieftain reporter James Bartolo can be reached by email at JBartolo@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Pueblo D70 finishing work on schools as start of year nears
