NEWMAN – Parents taking youngsters to school at Hunt Elementary this fall will be able to use a new drop-off zone aimed at easing traffic congestion.

Athletes and spectators at Orestimba High School will enjoy a refurbished gymnasium.

Students at every grade level will return to deep-cleaned classrooms when the school bell signals the start of a new session on Aug. 18.

It’s been a busy summer for the Newman-Crows Landing Unified School District maintenance staff and contractors.

“We’ve been running,” said John Menchaca, the district’s director of maintenance and operations.

For students and classroom staff, summer offers a break from school.

For the district’s maintenance and custodial staff, however, the summer months are anything but a vacation as they scramble to clean and repair the vacant campuses before school starts anew.

A number of special projects have been on this summer’s “to-do” list.

Two school bond-funded projects, a senior/adult education center on the grounds of Von Renner and a snack bar/restroom building at Bonita, are completed or close to it.

The senior/adult ed center is expected to host its first activity Aug. 11, a school board meeting.

The Bonita snack bar is ready for use.

“It came in on time and on budget,” Menchaca said.

Those projects started while school was still in session; others have been strictly limited to the summer months.

At Hunt School, the new student drop-off zone and a completely reconstructed playground area are two very visible improvements.

At the beginning of this week, both projects were awaiting concrete and asphalt.

“They will be completed by the beginning of the school year,” Menchaca stated. “We are getting close (to completion).”

Visitors to the Orestimba gym will notice a night-and-day difference from previous years.

The gym is sporting a refurbished floor, new scoreboard and other improvements.

“The floor came out beautifully,” Manchaca said, “and with the products that they have now you will still have that clear finish in 20 years.”

The gym floor, he noted, is solid maple.

The district also renovated the football field, a project which included tearing out the badly worn center of the field, recrowning the field and installing new sod. New sod was also installed on the high-traffic sideline areas.

Custodial staff members have been on the go as well – literally.

“We have done a team cleaning program this summer,” Menchaca explained. “All the custodial staff went from one school site to the next, deep cleaning. When they are done, the custodians will go back to their own sites for whatever minor maintenance they need to finish up and to make sure that everything is ready for the kids to come back to school.

“We go through each classroom,” he added. “This is one of the first years where we have extracted every carpet, and all the tiles get scrubbed down and waxed.”

Groundskeepers have been sprucing up the facilities as well.

“We worked on our fertilizing program,” Menchaca said. “We are trying to keep up on the fertilizing of our fields and keeping them green and safe.”

In a few weeks, the campuses will be completely ready to welcome students and staff.

“It is a lot of work,” Menchaca reflected, “but we have a good staff and good direction from the superintendent in terms of what he wants to see.”