New School Entrance…When?

The CHS main entrance has been under construction for the past month, causing inconvenience to students who must walk around to the school’s side entrance to enter the building. The renovation leaves the main entrance open to the cold in the morning and makes the school far chillier for the students who wait in the lobby before school.

The construction began on September 27th at the direction of the Jefferson County Public Schools, which is requiring all high schools to have a secure vestibule in front of the main entrance. This vestibule will provide a separate entrance to the library as well as more protection for the school, as it requires all visitors to be buzzed in by the front office to gain access to the building. The project was originally anticipated to take around two months to complete, but it now isn’t expected to be finished until January at the earliest. This overrun of six weeks or more is due to material delays caused by the pandemic, which has made long distance shipping and trade extremely ineffective. 

“Because of materials being backordered, we are having a hard time getting the hardware, the doors themselves, and the glazing, which is the glass which needs to be of a specific type for the vestibule to be a secure entry,” facility manager Jean Smith said.

The construction so far has not had any major difficulties aside from the material delays and is showing visible signs of progress.

“Everything is roughed in right now, all the wiring,and there is an additional camera in this area, there is an additional secure perimeter and lockdown button all wired up here. When we finish there is going to be a security desk here that will be able to lock down the building.” Smith said.

These delays are bad news for the building crew, which consists of around seven different subcontractors, each with two to three workers, who will have to deal with the material delays as well as winter weather. 

“We have a few week lag in some of our schedules, so we don’t work every day,” construction superintendent Mike McBride said.

With the temperature dropping, the unfinished entrance could cause even colder temperatures in the atrium and in the nearby areas. Unfortunately, progress on the entrance has been delayed and will most likely require students to use the secondary entrance into next year until the construction crews receive the materials they need to finish the project.

“When the project is complete this will be the main entry for everyone coming in, students, staff, and visitors,” Smith said.