The North Tama Community School District’s high school addition project pictured on Sunday, Jan. 26, as viewed from the north along Sixth Street in Traer. Precast concrete panels were placed late last week as part of the $14.85 million project. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

TRAER – The North Tama high school addition project took a huge leap forward late last week when multiple precast concrete wall panels were delivered and subsequently lifted into place by a crane.

With the placement of the panels, a concrete picture began to take shape for the public to see of the new two-story building which is being constructed adjacent to the far east side of the PK-12 Traer complex near the intersection of S Main (US 63) and Sixth Streets.

The construction project – funded by a $14.85 million school bond referendum passed in Nov. 2023 – was mentioned several times during the North Tama Board of Education’s regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 21, with Superintendent John Cain referring at one point to the project’s progress as “pretty positive.” Cain also told the board it had been hard for contractors to work in the recent bitterly cold weather – weather that plunged much of the nation including Iowa below zero for days.

When asked by board member Cheryl Popelka how far behind schedule the project was at that point, Cain said only a few days.

“They’re in go mode right now,” he said before adding that road construction near the site will remain “unchanged” with the fence possibly pushed out closer to the concrete barriers to allow for additional room.

A rendering courtesy of Andrew Bell with Align Architecture of the completed North Tama High School addition project. The addition is slated to finish in late December 2025/early January 2026.

“By next Tuesday (Jan. 28) they should be all the way around except for two panels where they get in and out of,” board member David Calderwood added. He also said interior demolition on part of the existing building had begun including “widening a hole in the outside wall” in order to move equipment inside.

With good weather, Cain said optimistically, the next significant step will be to cover the addition in order to “avoid moisture.”

“They’re working against time, but as long as it’s 30 degrees and less snow, they’ll catch up.”

‘Redhawk red’

During Principal Taylor Howard’s report to the board Tuesday evening, branding for the new addition was discussed including the creation of a “branding guide” which Howard described as a six to eight page document detailing, among other aspects, the district’s official font and colors. It’s a guide, he explained, that contractors will be in need of very soon.

PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

“I guarantee you nobody around this table knows officially what ‘Redhawk red’ is – what the Pantone (color) of that is. The reason why I know that is because you walk around this building and there’s 47 different shades of red,” Howard said while standing in the Junior High Commons. “I just think it’s time that we try to find and hone in (on) what that official color of red and white is.”

Howard also said the original version of the Redhawk logo had a “very dark grey beak and grey eye,” but sometime around 2001-2002, the bird started sporting a pure white beak and eye.

“There’s just a lot of different versions of our logo. A lot of schools are in the same boat. … Moving forward, if we could try to find some process of branding so that way our new building has all of it and all future construction projects will have that same color of red.”

Cain said the choice for ‘Redhawk red’ would need to be chosen relatively quickly while the rest could take a bit more time. He also said he believed the district moved over 20 years ago from the three-color Redhawk (red, black, and grey) to the two-color Redhawk primarily due to cost.

School to start in 2025 after Labor Day

PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

Another development pertaining to the construction project was the need to move next year’s school start date past Labor Day (Monday, Sept. 1, 2025) in order to continue working on Phase I of the master facility plan. In addition to the new high school addition, Phase I also includes secure entry upgrades across the K-12 campus, reconfiguration of the locker rooms and weight room to become ADA-compliant, paving of the existing back parking lot, and selective maintenance on other parts of campus.

“Due to the construction project, they asked us to stay out of the building as long as we can so that kind of pushes us back (to) starting right after Labor Day,” Cain explained. He said teachers would be allowed in the building earlier than Labor Day but elementary teachers might not be able to access their classrooms as early as in years past.

In terms of the 2025-26 school calendar, Cain also said he is hoping to keep early dismissals to one hour; include a full two-week winter break; include no spring break; end the school year on Friday, May 29, 2026; build in 27 hours for snow days; and extend the length of the school day by 15 minutes to accommodate the later than usual start of Sept. 2 or 3.

“This all needs to be worked through, these are just ideas,” Cain said. In terms of preliminary feedback on the calendar proposals, he said almost all of the comments administration had received thus far from staff had been understanding and positive.

“[Contractors] have a lot of work to do in the elementary – they want us out of here as soon as we can … they’re going to need all of the summer and [more] … so the teachers can walk into their rooms (on Sept. 2 or 3) and use them. That is why we’re starting late. It has nothing to do with the high school (addition),” Cain said.

PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

Later in the meeting, the board set the 2025-26 calendar public hearing to take place in the middle of next month’s regular meeting scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 18, beginning at 6:30 p.m. in the Junior High Commons.

The board hopes to have the final version of the 2025-26 school calendar approved sometime in March.