With summertime now in full swing, St. Charles Parish students and teachers may have the next two months off, but for Chief St. Charles Parish School Board Plant Services and Security Offer John Rome and his hard-working staff – the busiest work season of the year has just begun.
“We have literally hundreds of projects going on,” Rome said of his School Board Plant Services’ current slate of construction, renovation and repair projects. “Some are proposal based, some are bid-based, some are projects that we’re finishing up on.”
Rome commented that after managing numerous storm-related repair projects at schools across the parish the last two years, there were only three Hurricane Ida related projects left to complete, which his crews will soon be wrapping up. His team has ongoing maintenance, renovation and new construction projects to tend to all year long, but the more challenging or larger projects are typically reserved for the summer months when school is out.
“For multiple reasons, we always try to strategically plan out work throughout the year,” Rome explained of the School Board’s complex schedule of construction projects.
Saving major construction projects for the summer months helps Rome and his staff make St. Charles Parish schools safer – students are not exposed to major work at their schools, and it helps teachers and students minimize distractions, allowing them to focus on learning during the school year rather than dealing with noisy power equipment or navigating construction caution tape during school hours.
“If we’ve got to paint a hallway, we can do that during a break or after hours or on the weekends,” Rome explained. “But the heavy lifting – the major construction, the structural components, roofing, lighting, HVAC work and things of that nature – those major projects we try to knock out as much as we can during the summer months.”
While teachers and students get a couple of summer months off each year, Rome and his staff – including school custodians – are busier than ever during the summertime, working hard and late hours in the Louisiana summer heat to get projects completed on time before schools open back up in the fall.
Rome’s team currently has millions of dollars of construction projects in various stages of construction, bidding or planning in progress, throughout the parish. Some of the School Board’s major renovation projects this summer including a building addition project along with flooring replacement in the main building at R.K. Smith Middle School in Luling. The flooring replacement work is expected to be complete by the end of the summer, while the building addition work will go on this summer and complete during the summer of 2024.
The East Bank Head Start Center in Destrehan is also slated for major work during the 2023 summer months – including a building addition and renovation of the facility’s main building, with the renovation work expected to complete this summer.
“The addition portion [of the East Bank Head Start Center], much like the R.K. Smith Middle School project, will run throughout the school year but will not interfere with the school operations, and be completed next summer,” Rome said.
Students at Mimosa Park Elementary will return to school in the fall in time to enjoy a new main corridor canopy, which is being replaced this summer – yet another one of the major School Board summer construction projects now underway. The short-fuse project will include new concrete, new safety gates and electronic access in addition to the a new main corridor canopy. Demolition work on the Mimosa Park Elementary project has already been completed, Rome said, with additional work soon to be underway.
When it comes to how he gets so much accomplished each summer, year after year, 25-year School Board employee Rome pointed to his maintenance staff, custodians and various staff members that make sure each project gets completed for the benefit of parish students and families.
“It’s always about the guys out there; it’s not about who’s in the office,” Rome explained as to who he credits for getting so many projects done each year. “We have a maintenance department, a director, maintenance managers and 30 to 35 staff members, and approximately 90 custodians throughout the district that are really burning the midnight oil, doing everything they can to make sure the schools are in tip top shade for students and faculty when they return in August.”
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