The Cuba R-2 Board of Education received updates about its ongoing renovations during its July 16 meeting from Navigate Building Solutions senior project manager Matt Nigh, thanks to the recently passed bond, Proposition K.I.D.S., in the April 7 election.

Nigh began by applauding Superintendent Scott Davidson for his posts on social media, which detailed the status of the current projects on social media.

Davidson has posted videos and photographs on the district’s Facebook page, showing construction to add lighting to the softball, football and baseball fields along with footage of the construction that’s underway at the Cuba Elementary School playground.

“I think that’s a really good touch to put that out to the community through your socials,” Nigh said. “It definitely seems the more transparent you are, the better the outcome it’ll be.”

Nigh explained that he had 25 items on the facility maintenance plan and separated them into six different packages.

Bid package one is centered around finding the right engineers to design each project.

“This is going to be all of the scopes that we needed to pull in design professional engineers,” Nigh said. “That will help us get through designs so we can put a bid package together and put those out to bid. So that is in the works. We are finalizing a bond architects contract. They’ve agreed to all the terms. We’re just finalizing fees.”

Big package one also includes a contract negotiation update from Bond Architects and schedules for upcoming updates. The Schematic Design Deliverable document is due July 24, Navigate Building Solutions construction grade estimate is due on Aug. 10 and a presentation of Schematic Design and an estimate will be presented to the school board during its Aug. 20 meeting.

Bid package two is the demolition and abatement bundle. It began on June 23 with the completion of an asbestos demolition survey. The rest of the demolition bids are due in July and early August and an approval of the contractor will be brought to the school board during its Aug. 20 meeting.

Bid package three is centered around bids for earthwork and paving in the school’s parking lots. Nigh said the projects will take place in the summer of 2027, but he’s planning on sending bids out in the next couple months.

“We’re looking at putting that out to bid here in the next couple months as well, just so we can at least lock in those dollars and contractor for the summer work the following year,” he said. “It also helps to get a contractor that has the capability and capacity so they can already put that on their summer books for next year.”

Bid package four revolves around lighting for the athletic fields. Work has commenced and Nigh gave updates on the progress.

“Starting at the softball field, they have all the poles down. They have all the bases set. The crane is now sitting back at the baseball field because the ground is a little soft. They want to wait till that firms up a little bit before they drive out onto the grass. But still, good progress. Right now, they’re over at the football field. All those lights are set and up. They’re tying in all of the underground electric lines to each pole, so they’re working over there now. In a week’s time, you can see they’ve already got the poles raised and their lights are up in the air. They’ll probably be wrapping that up, if not the end of this week, early next week, and then they’ll move back over to softball as long as everything is dried out and finished with the softball field.”

Bid Package five addresses the upcoming projects that will extend and refurbish the Cuba Elementary School playground. Nigh said that dealing with the drainage in the current playground was the first order of business.

“One of the concerns was the drainage. The playground that was holding water in its previous state,” Nigh said. “So one of the initial things when the contractor got out there to start pulling all that pea gravel out was to identify where the current drains are and what condition they are in. There were two drains. One was by that pavilion, and the other was more up against the sidewalk. So they’ve completely uncovered those. They’ve actually replaced those drains, so now it’s a bigger, wider drain that sits a little deeper, and they’re also running.”

“Now, you’ll have a kind of a neoprene grate that’ll sit over the top of these where these two were going. Those will be open and allow water to flow right into them. I hope that it really improves the drainage.”

The elementary school playground expansion calls for a replacement fence, which Nigh detailed.

“The fence guy took the fence down on that south side, and he’ll start bringing that new fence out to expand that space into the grass,” he said.

The sixth and final bid package Nigh presented was focused on masonry tuckpointing, which will remove deteriorated mortar from brick and replace it with fresh mortar. Nigh said that he would like to line up a contractor sooner than later and work could commence during the school year if it won’t generate excess noise.

“I’d like to get that out on the street this fall and have a contractor lined up,” he said. “If it’s not really a big noise maker, and they can do something on the outside of the building, we could potentially have them start right away and that would roll into a summer project next year.”

Nigh concluded his presentation by explaining his goals for the timeline of the six bid packages to the school board.

“By the end of the year, we’ll have all six bid packages at least nailed down.  Everything will have been bid out, we’ll have contractors lined up to either start right away or move into lining them up for the summer work next summer, and then you‘ll see where we’re at with all the costs. So that ultimately will determine where we’re at with the budget.”

“The more we lock those numbers in, the more we’ll be able to determine how much we have to spend on some of the other ones, and potentially other projects.”

The school board applauded Nigh for his efforts and agreed that it looks good to the community to see work happening immediately in visible areas with the bond money.

Cuba R-2 Board of Education will meet again at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 19 at the central office and administrative building. A tax levy hearing is scheduled for 5:50 p.m., before the meeting.