Iberia Parish Schools maintenance workers Destry Vitter, foreground, and James Washington walk the halls of Coteau Elementary School after spending the summer making renovations there. 

As Iberia Parish students ease back into the routine of going back to school and filling their day with classroom work and homework, parish maintenance workers and their contractors have burned the midnight oil, so to speak, to make last-minute preparations to get schools and classrooms in tip top shape for the new school year.

“We start at the end of school. We say, ‘Send us a list of everything that needs replacing,’ ” Iberia Parish Schools general manager of maintenance Harry Lopez said last week. 

“So during the summer we usually have a list of about 30 to 40 work orders that we are working on all summer but when principals return at the start of school they discover new things that need adding and that jumps up to 100 a day,” Lopez said.

Among the routine maintenance orders carried out by the parish over the summer is the waxing of floors in all schools across the parish, plus the inspection of fire alarms. Several schools also received a coat of paint over the summer.

Lopez said $1.45 million of the 2013 bond money approved for the parish has been used on maintenance, repairs and upkeep this summer. The parish utilized five different general contractors to get the work done. 

One hundred thousand dollars worth of improvements were used  on concrete repairs.  Some of the most transformative improvements were changes made to the North Street Elementary School gym, which received new paint and windows this summer. Dodson Elementary School also received new paint in the exterior and interior portions of the building.

A full list of major improvements made over the summer include:

• Dodson Elementary: Interior/Exterior Paint, gutter repairs.

• Sugarland Elementary: Interior/Exterior Paint.

• North Street Elementary: New windows in half the school, interior painting, remodeled auditorium, fencing work, covered canopy installation.

• Anderson Middle School: concreted parking lot, replaced exterior windows, renovated all student restrooms.

• Coteau Elementary: changing of windows, renovated all student restrooms, reflooring in the oldest section of school as well as  improved air condition, ceiling and paint as well as drainage.

• Jeanerette Elementary: repaved the parking lot, renovated the student restrooms.

• Alternative Center: new air-conditioning installed in a four-room pod, each (25 feet x 25 feet), replaced windows near the office, painted kitchen, began repairing underground air conditioning piping.

Lopez said the Alternative Ceneter’s air conditioning piping has been the most problematic project this summer, mainly because of the depth the piping has been installed. Lopez said to get the equipment down in the hole has been an issue and when workers got to some of the piping it had rusted.

Maintenance crews will continue to dot their i’s and cross their t’s on work orders to be completed going into the fall, Lopez said.