Despite a lack of students, Fountain Hills Unified School District sites have remained rather active this summer as various crews have undertaken annual upkeep and improvement projects.

While nothing will be as immediately obvious as 2014’s football field renovations, Superintendent Dr. Patrick Sweeney said that students will notice a few changes here and there when they return to class in the fall.

In total, this year’s summer projects amount to about $1 million, with $20,000 tacked on for a 5 percent contingency that, according to Sweeney, doesn’t appear to be needed at this time.

As in years past, the summer projects have been funded by the voter-approved bond package, with projects pulled directly from the proposals included in voter information packets.

“Due to the support of the community and the voters, we’re able to do these things,” Sweeney said.

“What we try to look at are those things that we absolutely have to do, as well as those things that we can do because of the flexibility from the bond funding to be ahead of things, be more preventive and not wait for the crisis to happen.”

Parents who drop off their kids for the first day of school will likely notice one of the more visible changes, in that all parking lots are in the process of getting resurfaced and re-painted in time for the new school year.

“On the high school campus, we’re in the process of redoing the flooring in all of the corridors of all of the buildings,” Sweeney continued.

“That’s actually almost finished. The VCT tiles were removed down to the concrete, the concrete was smoothed and refinished with a commercial grade sealant and then buffed. They look awesome.”

A flooring project is also under way at the Middle School/Four Peaks campus, with VCT tiles being installed in all corridors and the science classrooms, and each of the site’s team rooms are getting new carpeting.

Speaking of new carpeting, the District Office floors are currently receiving a fresh covering, too.

Some of this summer’s projects are needed, but won’t be immediately noticeable in students’ day to day lives.

Two new HVAC units, for instance, are being installed at McDowell Mountain to keep the multipurpose room nice and cool.

“That’s part of phase two of the energy upgrade that got started a couple of years ago,” Sweeney explained.

“They’re more efficient units and better units, so hopefully they’ll provide more cooling power for lower cost.”

McDowell Mountain’s exterior is getting a small facelift, too. The wood fascia, which needs to be regularly repainted, is receiving a sheet metal wrap. This pre-painted wrap is estimated to last about 20-30 years before a fresh coat will be needed.

“They’re also doing quite a bit of work on the playgrounds over there,” Sweeney continued.

“There’s synthetic turf going in in a couple of areas and a new slide is going in.”

A recurring issue these past couple of years, the district is currently addressing the middle school gym, where flooding has damaged the flooring on a couple of occasions.

“We’ll be redirecting those downspouts and possibly doing some additional modifications to the drainage,” he said.

“We can’t have that happen again.”

While most summer projects will be wrapped up before the first bell of the 2015-16 school year rings, the Middle School gym project is expected to bleed over into the semester as work is wrapped up.

Finally, the high school lecture hall is receiving some renovations, with the flooring and seating being replaced.

“That’s about a 150-seat facility,” Sweeney said.

“That’s still part of this bond package, but the work will be done over fall break.”

When it comes to prioritizing projects, Sweeney said that each site provides its own list of requests, which are then combined with known needed projects.

From there, the district office determines which projects are most pressing and gets the ball rolling.

“You can’t do everything, but I think we got to the big things that had to be done and that should be done,” Sweeney said.

“Again, we couldn’t do this without the support of the community and we’re thankful for it.”