News

Nov 30, 2023

Gym floor bubbles not a fun thing

Marc Emral/The Register Lawrenceburg Community School Corp. Superintendent Karl Galey, top, and school board member Jacob Jump look over one of the bubbles in the Greendale Middle School. LAWRENCEBURG

Marc Emral/The Register

Lawrenceburg Community School Corp. Superintendent Karl Galey, top, and school board member Jacob Jump look over one of the bubbles in the Greendale Middle School.

LAWRENCEBURG – The gym in the Greendale Middle School will not be used at the start of school next week, or for a few more weeks.

The floor has “bubbles” where some of the wood is pushed up and has to replaced. When Lawrenceburg School Board members visited the gym after their July 10 meeting, they understood why they had voted earlier to replace it.

According to Superintendent Karl Galey, the floor was being sanded to have a coat of varnish applied, work that is performed every five years or so. That is when the contractor noticed the bubbles appearing in about eight spots, some of them large areas.

“(The repair company) believes what happened was that, when the sanding started and got down to that last layer, they pulled off the varnish. Moisture from underneath got in there and started coming up and making it bubble,” Galey said.

The wood floor was installed on top of the building’s original rubberized gym floor.

Galey said it would take five weeks and $20,000 to repair, with no guarantee that the floor would not bubble again.

Since the rubberized flooring is highly suspected to be causing the problem, Galley recommended tearing out both the wood and rubber floor and installing a new floor, which would cost about $190,000 and take eight weeks.

The superintendent told the board he would “reach out to some different sources and see about some different options on some funding.”

If needed, Galey said, the money could be moved into the corporation’s rainy day fund. But he would try to obtain funding elsewhere.

Initially, the school board voted to replace the floor without seeing it. After the meeting and the tour of the middle school gym, all fully supported the new floor.

Since the gym is unavailable, regardless of plans to repair or replace, Galey said work already has started to move activities.

“Either way, the work we’re talking about will take anywhere from six to eight weeks, minimum,” he said. “That’s talking about potentially volleyball season here at the middle school. We’ve already been in contact with others about alternative plans for practice space and games.”