Tulsa Public Schools starts clock on summer construction projects (2024)

Contractors are racing the clock to complete improvements at more than a dozen Tulsa Public Schools campuses this summer.

“We don’t have a choice,” Sam Green said. “We have to be done before the first day of classes.”

Green is part of a team installing a new heating and air conditioning system at the building shared by Mayo Demonstration School and Wilson Teaching and Learning Academy. That system and a new one at Edison Middle School are paid for through the Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief Fund, which includes air quality and ventilation improvements as acceptable expenditures.

Districtwide, TPS has spent about $60 million in COVID-19 relief funds for ventilation upgrades that otherwise would have been included in the 2021 bond package.

However, with those federal funds sunsetting later this year, TPS Bond Project Manager Ellen Duecker and Executive Director of Bond Management Chris Hudgins said the work to ensure that the last few projects start and finish on time started months in advance.

“We started very early,” Duecker said. “Those units that are being installed were ordered almost a year ago.”

Additionally, in order for the work to be completed before the launch of the 2024-25 school year, classrooms and other spaces in those two buildings had to be completely cleared out on the first day of summer break.

As Green and his crew install new rooftop-based units, the lockers, cubbies and display cases in Mayo’s hallways are covered in protective plastic, as are a handful of bookshelves that are built into the classroom walls. The floors are covered in dust and debris, thanks in part to the efforts to remove the building’s 20-year-old ventilation system and everything that comes with it.

“We had to drill some holes in concrete to get that boiler and chiller system out,” Green said with a grin.

While the federally funded improvements are underway at Mayo, Wilson and Edison Middle School, about $30 million in projects from the district’s 2021 five-year bond package are also in progress at campuses around Tulsa, ranging in size from new auditorium lights to the completion of a band room addition and new greenhouse at Webster Middle and High School.

“That’s pretty standard compared to what we did last year,” Hudgins said, noting that only about half of the bond funds have been released so far.

Wagging his tail, a brindle colored stray dog watched intently Thursday afternoon as a team of contractors hauled ladders and equipment in and out of Walt Whitman Elementary School, 3924 N. Lansing Ave.

The north Tulsa elementary school is one of two to receive a full interior remodel this summer, along with Wayman Tisdale Fine Arts Academy. With the ceiling tiles and flooring gone on the building’s east side and debris piled up in a restroom floor, contractor Steven Ryan acknowledged that while it might not look like it, Whitman will be ready for students when TPS starts classes on Aug. 20.

“Sometimes it’s a tight timeline, but we’ll get it done,” he said.

McLain High School, for which Whitman is a feeder school, is also getting upgrades this summer, including a new building façade and a remodeled kitchen.

Hale High School is getting a new canopied entryway, plus a new multisport facility that will double as a storm shelter upon completion in about 14 months.

Along with a weight room, locker rooms and offices for coaches, the new building will have track lanes on one side, a practice gym for basketball teams, and space for indoor soccer.

TPS Athletic Director Mick Wilson said the facility would also be accessible to teams from nearby Hale Middle School and potentially other TPS schools in need of an indoor practice facility, similar to other schools’ swim teams use of the pool at Booker T. Washington High School.

He also noted the facility’s opportunities to host tournaments for indoor soccer and futsal, the FIFA-recognized version of small-side indoor soccer.

“For soccer, what we’re seeing across the district, particularly recently, … our participation numbers have been really good,” he said. “As we continue to grow the sport, an indoor facility like this is important for us to have it not just for Hale High School but for TPS students across the district.”

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