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Students and parents of Perry County School District may have noticed a change this week. That’s because construction has begun on a new storm shelter to serve students at Perry County Middle and Perryville High Schools.
This is the start of Phase 2 of the Perry County Middle School project, and is being funded by a $2.2 million grant from FEMA. Perry County School District 32 was awarded $2,222,439 in federal funding, with a $740,813 match, for a total of $2.963 million to construct two tornado safe rooms. One will serve Perryville High School, and the other will serve Perry County Middle School.
They will both be constructed as part of Phase 2 of the district’s Long Range Facilities Plan, which includes the building of a new middle school. The FEMA grant requires the shelters to be completed within 30 months, or by February 2021.
This construction will also force a change in event parking procedures for the foreseeable future. But parent drop-off procedures will not be affected.
In a procedure that began on Monday, all access to the Perry County Middle School multipurpose room/gym will be through the bus parking lot. Visitors can access the bus parking lot by entering campus from Main Street on National Guard Drive, then turning left on Career Center Drive and following it to the bus lot. For home games and other events, visitors will enter the back door of the gym, which faces the bus lot. This will continue until the end of 2020.
Visitors to the main Middle School office can still park in the staff parking lot adjacent to the school. However, construction fencing will prevent people from walking from the main building to the gymnasium.
“The parent drop off for school continues to be the same, with parents entering the parent drop off from national guard drive and dropping off next to the bridge on the west side of our building, so there is nothing new there,” PCMS Principal Milt Wick said. “Event parking for track, volleyball, and basketball into next year will be affected. Patrons that parked in the new high school lot will not be able to access the gym and multipurpose complex from the west side due to construction. Event parking will have to be on the bus lot side.”
Brockmiller Construction was awarded the bid for Phase 2 at the November Board of Education Meeting for $4,252,900. The total project for the new middle school with the FEMA shelter will be about $15 million. Phase 1, which was completed in the summer of 2019, focused on the site preparation and improvements to infrastructure including sewer and water lines.
Phase 2 is centered around the construction of a two-story ICC-500 rated storm shelter, approximately 16,450 square foot in size, designed to protect both the middle School and the high school students,
The storm shelter will be connected to the existing multi-Purpose building. The current covered entry canopy of the multi-purpose building will be demolished and rebuilt as an interior corridor with a small gathering area connecting the high school and multi-purpose building with the storm shelter.
Interior spaces within the storm shelter are the band and choir rooms, special education classrooms, and resource rooms. The band and choir rooms allow students to access smaller breakout rooms for small group practice. The band room has access to a storage room on the mezzanine level for instrument storage and cabinetry.
The special education classrooms will provide flexible learning experiences, and the rooms will be equipped with primary and secondary teaching walls with tackable and markerboard surfaces, interactive projector, and storage casework. There is a shared room for teaching and developing life skills with kitchen appliances and laundry machines.
The exterior wall construction of the storm shelter will be precast concrete insulated panels with a roof construction consisting of precast concrete double tees and a concrete topping slab. The roofing system installed over the concrete topping slab will be a TPO adhered systems over cover board and rigid insulation.
Interior work involves metal stud framed walls with gypsum board, concrete slabs, flooring, ceilings, interior painting, manufactured casework, visual display boards, doors and frames, toilet partitions and toilet accessories, light fixtures, VRF System and plumbing fixtures.
Wick noted that renovations and construction will help the school be better suited for the students.
“This phase of construction will do a lot to improve our safety, because it is the tornado shelter portion of the new middle school. We will be able to shelter all of our students in a building that meets the tornado shelter standards, “Wick said. “The building is also designed around middle-school sized students. Hallways will double in size and classrooms will be designed for the purpose they serve.”
