Tar Heel School project celebrates 100,000 safe hours

TAR HEEL — Despite my father working in construction my whole life, I’ve never had any real understanding of how buildings get built. I just knew that it took a lot of planning, a lot of people, and a lot of difficult labor.

The workers at the Tar Heel School construction site recently celebrated 100,000 safe hours of work with a luncheon. The school is on track to be completed in the fall and is scheduled to begin instruction for the spring 2024 semester.

A tour and explanation of the school revealed that an enormous amount of thought went into the design of the building and the completion of the project.

The school will have electric buses, solar panels on the roof, and geothermal wells under the baseball field to help power the school, an investment that project superintendent Ben Brisson says will pay off during the next several decades.safety and

Tar Heel School will be open to K-8 students and will take students from Plainview Primary School and, obviously, Tar Heel Middle School will be eligible to attend the school once it opens following the completion of construction.

The designers of the building also took safety and security into account and put multiple systems in place to protect students from potential intruders. The main entrance to the school will contain two sets of glass doors. Students will enter the building through the first set of doors, and then proceed through the next set where they will walk through a metal detector and have their bags checked. Once school begins, the second set of doors will lock and any visitors or late students will have to enter into the office after going through the first set of doors. All other exit doors throughout the school will operate on a timer.

The front office also has a panic button that office staff can push in case of an emergency or intruder.

The school was also designed with student collaboration in mind with halls of the older grades being larger to allow for students to gather in the designated areas to work together.

Bordeaux Construction Company is currently in charge of the project. Just from hearing them speak about the project, Alex Herndon, project manager, and Brisson are excited to be working on a school that will serve its future students and provide them with a good foundation for their educational future.