VIENNA — At the June 27 Maries R-1 School Board meeting, Superintendent Teresa Messersmith gave updates on summer facility projects.

The project to redo the walls and roof of the greenhouse is complete. The district also recently put a new heater in the greenhouse.

“It looks completely different,” she said. “It’s very nice.”

The middle school roof project is also complete. The final cost was $110,491, which Messersmith said was the exact estimate that the roofers provided before the project. The district used its remaining bond money and an additional $6,111.66 from the capital outlay fund to pay for it.

Messersmith said work on the drainage issue in the locker room had not gone as well as she had hoped. The project intended to burrow underneath the drain to repair a collapsed pipe, but the workers realized that another drain met it in the middle of the concrete. After changing plans and digging across a sidewalk, they were able to complete the drain repairs at an additional cost to fix the sidewalk.

The board held a special meeting on July 20 to select from two bids for the elementary electrical project. The project will involve rewiring the hallway through the attic instead of underneath the school.

Two companies submitted bids for the project. Rolla-based McNew Electric bid $103,500, and Schneider Electric submitted a $113,900 bid.

Messersmith said she had talked with both companies and only McNew Electric could complete the project before the start of school. The board approved McNew Electric’s bid.

Waxing of the gym floor will happen this week. After that, the gym will remain closed until the beginning of school.

The district plans to have Stricklan Foundation build a retaining wall by the locker rooms. The school will fix a collapsing sink in the kindergarten restroom as in-house work.

Messersmith said the district is keeping an eye on lead testing requirements and making sure it meets them all. At the May meeting, she said Maintenance and Facilities Department Supervisor Mike Shaughnessy had pretested four faucets for lead filter tests and all four failed. The next step the district could take is adding lead filters to water sources coming into the building. If that does not work, the district would need to add filters to all water fountains and sinks used to cook.

The initial results of the Missouri State Highway Patrol bus inspections approved 60 percent of the district’s buses and determined 40 percent were defective. After minor repairs on the spot, the state approved all the buses.

The district’s only unexpected expense for the month was a high water bill. Messersmith said at the May meeting that the school’s water bill showed abnormal usage coming from one meter, which they shut off to prevent the bill from continuing to rise. The meter showed the school was using 12 gallons per second.

Messersmith said there was no sign of the water aside from the meter reading. Board members suspected an issue with the meter.

The district received $114,248.62 in Formula Classroom Trust money, $41,973.31 in Proposition C revenue, $20,167 for transportation and $25,955.78 for Food and Nutrition.

The electric bill was $4,422.92. The district did not buy propane in June. Propane costs for the year totaled $46,035.54, which was lower than the $63,000 budgeted for it.

The district had a virtual pre-audit ahead of the in-person audit in August.

Attendance for the last couple of weeks of school was 92.61 percent for the 473 students across the district. The elementary school had 94.91 percent attendance, the middle school had 89.49 percent attendance and the high school had 93.42 percent attendance.

“(Attendance) is something we really need to try next year to promote,” Messersmith said. “We want 90 percent of our students here 90 percent of the time. That’s the state’s goal of what we should strive for at least.”

Board member Matt Novak asked if there was any specific cause for low middle school attendance.

Messersmith said it had been an ongoing issue. She said she could look at the data to determine if the same students regularly missed school or if it was a more widespread problem.