School is out for summer but the district’s maintenance employees are getting the annual deep cleanings and special maintenance projects done while the students are on vacation.

Oakdale Joint Unified School District Director of Maintenance and Operations Dan Casey reported about several projects on the docket to keep the schools looking and operating at their best. He said that there are touch-up painting projects – such as trim, cabinets and exterior walls – at all the school sites except Sierra View Elementary. Additionally, Casey said he had a number of work orders, such as small wiring projects in the classrooms, throughout the district. This is also the time where every classroom gets a deep cleaning: desks get turned over and cleaned underneath, blinds are washed, floors are waxed, carpets are steam cleaned, and more.

The maintenance team is also performing some energy retrofits at Cloverland and Magnolia elementary schools, two of the older facilities in the district. They’ll be changing the old florescent lighting to new florescent fixtures, which will result in approximately 20 percent energy savings. At Magnolia, 17 of the HVAC units, which are heat and air conditioning package units in the classrooms, will be replaced as they were installed in the late 1980s and are at the end of their lives. The boiler/hot water heater in the boys’ locker room at Oakdale High School will be replaced as well.

The sports fields at the high school will be getting some extra attention this summer. Casey said that he’s in the process of trying to solve an issue with compaction at the OHS soccer field. The field gets spongy in the winter with the extra rainfall and some core samples of the ground have been taken for analysis. Also at the high school, some of the baseball field bleachers will receive a few new boards.

At Oakdale Junior High School, maintenance personnel will be reinforcing the flooring in one of the portable classroom buildings that is to be converted into a book room. The extra weight from the books requires it.

There are also a few tree issues to be dealt with in the district. The Oak trees on Wood Avenue by the OHS soccer field will be trimmed because some of the branches have gotten too low and the buses were hitting them. At Magnolia, a small Oak tree at the front of the school got knocked over by high winds about a month ago and the leftover stump needs to be ground. There are no plans to replace the tree at this time. Another stump-grinding project is on the backside of the school near the bus circle. There were 19 Alder trees that were infected with mistletoe and had to be removed. Once the grinding is done, the plan is to replace the Alders with the more-hearty Chinese Pistache.