During a May 6 board of trustees workshop session, David Vesling, executive director of facilities and support services for PfISD, said the project’s contractor had requested an extension of the completion date out to October. Now, the contractor and school district are working on an “accelerated schedule” to try to reach the original timeline.
“We all agreed an October completion date is unacceptable,” Vesling said. “We believe we can accelerate this schedule to reach the milestone of July 31. ... This is going to be a massive undertaking to do this, so this is no guarantee.”
PfISD Superintendent Douglas Killian said the district has paid to bring in additional specialty trade workers for the project, including masons and drywall installers.
“This should have been accelerated a while back,” Killian said. “I want to make everybody aware that we’re trying to recover a schedule.”
According to district documents, 36 drywall installers have been brought on to help finish the middle school project. These extra workers will cost the district $46,080.
PfISD has further added 45 masons to the construction site at a cost of $128,304. Ed Ramos, chief operations officer for PfISD, said those extra costs were built into Bohls Middle School’s original contingency budget. The middle school project still has a remaining $300,000 in contingency costs remaining in its budget.
Killian said the district is not currently disputing any costs associated with the project with Weber Construction, saying the two entities are working “in good faith” to finish construction on the original timeline.
OTHER DISTRICT NOTES
Official: Riojas Elementary currently is adding more Black educators
Following several comments from district teachers and community advocates, Pflugerville ISD officials stated on May 6 it is finalizing hiring two Black educators at Riojas Elementary School—the first Black teachers on that campus in a decade.
Willie Watson Jr., chief human resources officer for PfISD, said May 6 that the district is bringing on one of the student teachers currently at Riojas Elementary as a full-time teacher and is hiring another Black educator to work at the campus next year.
As previously reported by Community Impact Newspaper, the last time Riojas Elementary employed a full-time Black teacher was during the 2010-11 academic year, when there was one Black educator out of a total 30 teaching positions.
