When people ask Dave Stark if he had a good, restful summer, he laughs and tells them, “Yes, it was a good summer.”

But restful? Hardly.

Most people don’t realize as director of grounds and facilities for Seymour Community School Corp., Stark’s busiest time of the year is when students and teachers are on vacation. And this summer has been the busiest he can remember in his 15 years on the job, he said.

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Three major projects are wrapping up in the corporation as students prepare to begin the 2018-19 school year Thursday. Teachers had their first day back Tuesday.

The biggest undertaking has been the $1.5 million renovations of science rooms at Seymour High School. That work is being done by T&G Construction Co. Inc. of Bedford.

Other work this summer has included interior renovations to the main office area and classrooms at Cortland Elementary School and the completion of the interior of the new Seymour Farm Ag-Science Research Center in Freeman Field.

Because of the scope of the science classroom project and utility work associated with it, there was some concern it wouldn’t be done in time. But Stark said those fears were not realized, as the rooms are now ready for students.

Toward the end of May, T&G Construction came in and gutted three of the science classrooms, two separate labs and a storage room in the school’s 300 building, ripping out everything from the walls, floor and ceiling grid to the casework and built-in lab tables.

In the new configuration, instead of five rooms, there are now three larger rooms, more than 1,500 square feet each, that function as both classroom and lab. Each room also has its own storage room.

The rooms feature new LED lighting, making them brighter, and new lab tables that are mobile instead of stationary so they can be reconfigured as needed for lectures or experiments.

The classroom environment is more modern and better suited for collaborative work.

One unique feature is some of the new storage cabinets have a whiteboard finish so students and teachers can write on them with dry erase markers. Each lab also has an emergency shower, fume hoods, five sinks on both sides of the room, pegged drying racks above the sinks for beakers and each sink has special eye wash attachments.

New purple lockers were added in the hallway outside the renovated rooms.

Because of the cost, it was not possible to do all of the science rooms and labs this year. Stark said he hopes the corporation is able to do the rest next summer.

Also at the high school, $63,730 was spent to redo six tennis courts this summer. Four courts were redone last year.

The corporation’s newest facility, the Seymour Farm Ag-Science Research Center also was built in 2017 for $2 million, but there was not enough money available in the project’s budget to finish the interior of the building.

The corporation invested an additional $400,000 this year to outfit the building’s ag classroom, foods lab/kitchen and metal shop/welding lab and install large fans and lockers in the ag shop area.

Rose Acre Farms donated $50,000 to the project to purchase state-of-the-art equipment for the foods lab, which will allow students to experience the curriculum of food chemistry, food safety and security, food product development and marketing through hands-on opportunities.

Ag teacher Jeanna Eppley said she plans to start holding classes in the new building by the end of this month.

Instead of hiring an outside construction company to do the renovation work at Cortland Elementary, the corporation did the work in-house with Stark serving as general contractor. Outside vendors, including Koch Mechanical, Lee Co., Carpet Gallery, S&B and Karen Zike, provided services, including casework, flooring and painting.

A total of six classrooms, along with the office, were renovated. The color scheme was changed to match the library addition constructed in 2016.

Another big project, for the kindergarten and preschool classrooms, was a change-out of the ceiling-mounted heating ventilation and air conditioning units, which were too noisy. A much quieter floor-mounted unit was installed in both of those rooms to improve the learning environment.

The total cost was $124,432, most of which came from the district’s capital projects fund and some from a 2016 bond.

Cortland Principal Lori Lister said she and her staff are very excited about the renovations.

“They love all the new cabinetry, which provides more storage and individual cubbies for each student,” she said. “The new paint and carpet has made the classrooms brighter and more inviting.”

Stark said the corporation is planning to do a similar project to update and renovate older classrooms at Margaret R. Brown Elementary School next year.

One project that was planned but didn’t get done this summer is the installation of a playground — accessible to students in wheelchairs and those with other physical impairments — at Seymour-Redding Elementary.

The district has budgeted $100,000 for the playground, and Stark said it will be a priority next summer.

“We’re still looking at what we want, trying to do an evaluation of what equipment is right for us,” he said. “We want to try to create a playground that includes everybody because you don’t want to just isolate special needs kids.”