WACO is under construction. We will build a new addition to the elementary school in Crawfordsville and remodel the present three story building. We will also build a multi-purpose gym and wrestling room at the secondary school in Wayland.

The workers started with the new lunchroom. Here is how it looked during the summer.

You can watch the progress in the photo album. Click on the small picture to see a larger picture.

To make the lunchroom larger, we had to remove the old wall. The construction workers used large posts to hold up the roof before they knocked out the wall. The plywood behind the posts keeps rain out of the lunchroom.

A different crew of workers used a backhoe to break up the concrete parking area outside the lunchroom. The workers had to put many pieces into the back hoe by hand.

The backhoe pounded on the sidewalk to break it into small pieces. The truck hauled away the concrete pieces.

The workers removed the wall between the gymnasium and the lunchroom. They removed the steps, too. The jackhammer was used to remove a part of the floor to make room for new pipes.

The construction crew cut through the wall between the lunchroom and the kitchen. They will build a new room for a new dishwashing machine and a new place to serve lunches. On the right you can see the doors for the new rooms before the masons finished the walls.

MASONRY

The workers who laid the blocks to make the wall are called masons. Most of the masons on our project were men but one was a woman. The blocks were called concrete masonry units. They used mortar, a mixture of cement, sand, lime, and water, to hold the blocks together. Here are pictures of the masons as they built the walls.

The first layer of block is placed on the footing. Soon the wall is above ground level.

A scaffold with wooden blanks holds the block and gives the masons a place to stand while they work.

Josh was one of the masons. He uses a string to guide him when he puts the block in place. On right you can see how he uses a level to make sure the block is set correctly.

When the bar joists came, the workers placed them on top of the block walls. The bar joists supported a steel deck. A concrete floor was poured over the steel deck.

Here you can see how it looked as the walls slowly grew.

Doug is the foreman for the masons. Here he cuts and places odd shaped block that must fit around a pipe.

During the summer and fall the walls went up. Soon the cement crew came to pour the second floor.

Here you can see a steel I-beam over a window opening in the wall. This is called a lintel. It will support the weight of the wall above it.

Here Doug sets a string to guide him as he places cement block around the second floor window.

After the workers removed the windows in the gym, they filled them in with cement block. On the south side, though, they left room for new windows so sunlight could brighten the gym.

Here are two views of the scaffolding and wall where the elevator shaft connected to the new wall.

The Mission of the WACO Community Schools is to develop responsible, productive citizens who view learning as a life-long process. WACO's educational environment encourages continuous improvement, problem solving, measurable outcomes, and community involvement.