NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The finishing touches on the window work in Pretty Prairie USD 311 were wrapped up this past week.
"Everything looks so great, but I think we're excited to kind of have our space back," said USD 311 Superintendent Ashley Anderson. We've got repairs to do to our ceiling and the auditorium, so that will happen probably over the summer. They're gonna have to do some special scaffolding with the seats in there. They're gonna have to build some things to get over those seats. That'll all happen this summer when the building is not being used. We use that auditorium so often that we couldn't really get around it during the school year. We've got that project left. We've got secure entrances left. We'll start looking at designs for those here at the beginning of the year in 2025 and start kind of narrowing down some ideas on that, and they'll start working on those over the summer."
The gym work at the middle school continues, as well.
"The talk around town is how quickly these walls have been built," Anderson said. "It kind of felt like we were at a standstill for a while just because you couldn't see really a lot of the progress once we got our North wall torn down. It just kind of felt like a standstill. They were working hard every day, but your eye couldn't really see anything. Well, now within the last couple of weeks, once those beams went up, my goodness, we've got a concrete floor, we've got all the concrete block is going up and it's just amazing. It's like, wow, it feels like it's almost done to us because it's just gone so fast. So then they'll start working on the insides and plumbing and stuff like that."
The improvements to the educational areas at the high school are already in use.
"Our ag shop, our science classroom, science is done and everything is working well in there," Anderson said. "Our kids can do experiments and we've got a fume hood, we've got gas again. So burners are working and then the ag shop, I think we've got an electrical project left out there. And then that one's gonna be checked off the list. We're making good progress."
The bond issue was approved in May of 2023.