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Construction crews remodeling Wasatch Junior High only have 10 days left to get it ready for the first day of school. Will they be able to pull it off?
Neighbors here are pretty skeptical. One man said, "I drove there a week ago, and it looked close, but I don't know if it'll be ready in time." One woman said, "No, probably not, maybe? I don't know."
A third person we spoke with said, "They've been working on this school since the day we moved into this house last March, and it's been nonstop noise and commotion, and just looking at the way it is right now, it doesn't look like it's going to be done."
Some parents say they got a letter saying no orientation this year. Everybody will be orienting together on the first day. Crews are working as hard as they can, but there's a lot of work left to do: lots of dirt and heavy equipment and hard hats on all sides of the building.
One woman we spoke with said, "It doesn't look anywhere close to being done. The inside looks completely vacant, you know, except for a few lights."
The Granite School District says Wasatch Junior High will be ready, or mostly ready, for the first day of school on Aug. 25.
Randy Ripplinger, spokesman for the Granite School District says you can't judge the school's readiness by the outside of the building because crews are focusing on things like classrooms first. He confirms the auditorium won't be ready, but the office already is and classrooms are close behind. He says crews are furiously working to get the media center ready as well. In his words, "the grass can wait."
Wasatch Junior High burned down in July 2005, when a computer lab fire spread to the school's attic and became too hot for firefighters to attack from the inside of the building.
Students displaced by the fire have shared space at Churchill Junior High since then.
In 2007, the Granite School Board accepted at $15.9 million settlement from its insurance company for the loss of the school.
The fire at the old Wasatch prompted the state fire marshal's office to formally check every school in the state within three years of the disaster. Wasatch's 46-year-old structure had no sprinklers and had not had an inspection in the four years before the blaze.
E-mail: bbruce@ksl.com
