During the summer, the Oakdale Joint Unified School District’s maintenance department is busy getting the campuses ready to look their best when students arrive on Aug. 8 for the start of the new school year.

OJUSD Director of Maintenance and Operations Dan Casey reported about some of the major maintenance projects and regular projects in the district that will get done this summer.

At Fair Oaks Elementary School, new concrete sidewalks are going in because of trip hazards. Maintenance employees are also painting the exterior of the school.

The concrete entrance at Magnolia Elementary School is getting replaced, as well as the solar light poles in the school parking lot.

The interior of the Oakdale High School gymnasium was repainted, giving it a cleaner and brighter look. It also received large, newly-painted graphics on the walls, which were created by Sue Oler and Rhonda Darling McDonald of Sue and Rhonda Wall Design.

“It looks awesome,” Casey said.

He also reported that his staff is remodeling an old boiler room at Cloverland Elementary School and turning it into an office for the teacher-in-charge.

Casey added that they are also changing the entrance into East Stanislaus High School by adding a new door into the office, which is for safety and lockdown reasons.

“My smaller projects are installing smart boards throughout the district, floor tile replacement, repairing torn tag boards in classrooms, gutter repair, dry rot repair, tree removal and stump grinding, things like that,” Casey said.

The regular summer cleaning is also taking place at each school in the district, he said, and it takes all summer to clean a school site. There is desk cleaning, where every single desk is cleaned top and bottom, plus floor polishing, carpet cleaning, cobweb clearing and dusting, window cleaning, outdoor pressure washing, and more.