WETHERSFIELD - Class is in session at Wethersfield High School, with last Tuesday’s opening marking the end of the summer phase of renovation work that has included the football field and construction on the new additions--a gymnasium, music room, and library/media center--scheduled to open in December.

       While the new wings are among the highlights of the project, which will include work on the existing building, one of Superintendent of Schools Michael Emmett’s primary objective this summer has been preparing temporary space so that classes can function with construction continuing. Renovations of the existing building have begun, so the district needed a place that could accommodate the loss of six classrooms.

       â€�"Our swing space has been completed,” Emmett said about a week before school started. â€�"The former Gym A is now six classrooms.”

       Five science classes and one social studies class, to be exact. That means that physical education classes won’t have an indoor space, something that should not be a problem until the colder months, Emmett said. He hopes that by then--ideally November, but December the latest--the new gym will be up and running.

       When the weather starts becoming less suitable for outdoor P.E. sessions, the focus will shift to health education so that the classrooms can be utilized, Emmett said.

       Plans call for the new gym space to be available in time for the high school basketball season, Emmett said. For the teams, it would mean a return home after playing on borrowed courts. The boys were bused to Sports Science Medical Academy in Hartford for â€�"home” games, while the girls teams played at Silas Deane Middle School, all of last year.

       The building’s main office and guidance area will also be relocated to the 200 level Emmett said.

       â€�"That area was abated over the summer and is now under construction,” he said. â€�"That was part of the reason we had the cost overrun.”

       The overrun, a $10.3 million increase from the project’s original $75 million budget, was driven primarily by unexpected PCB remediation and inflated construction bids. A combination of value engineering and a $10 million space waiver, a state Department of Education-issued reimbursement for building construction done in order to comply with the mandated size needed for a given population of students, closed the gap.

       Now Emmett is shifting his attention to the high school’s track, which will be getting a full resurfacing starting in October.

       â€�"I don’t know the last time that it was resurfaced,” he said. â€�"The track, like many facets of the building, is worn out. We’ve gone through years and years of fixing the track and filling the cracks.”

       The start of work on the track was scheduled to begin after fall sports teams will have completed most of their home games, Emmett said. Once October hits, the track will be off limits.

       â€�"It’s going to be closed,” Emmett said. â€�"At this point, we’re waiting for a paving of the track, and then a resurfacing. We need about three weeks for that rubber surface to cure, and the last thing we want to do is to have to do it again.”