New WB Area video, photos show high school nearly sealed for winter

PLAINS TWP. — With new tours not an option due to the surge in COVID-19 cases, Wilkes-Barre Area School District Superintendent Brian Costello posted new video and released photos of the progress made on the district’s new consolidated high school in Plains Township.

Costello said — and aerial shots in the nearly 12-minute video confirm — that nearly all of the building is now enclosed, with a roof still missing on the natatorium and a on section that will be devoted the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) subjects.

Tours of the facility have been harder to come by since the pandemic hit Pennsylvania in March. The rate of new infections was low enough in August that Costello let the Times Leader walk the site — masked and keeping distance — for new photos, but Costello said he has been unable to fulfill requests by School Board members and media for a more recent look, so he posted the video on Youtube . He also provided some still photos.

Costello said the issue of cracks in some masonry has been largely resolved, noting most of the problems were hairline fractures in upper layers of concrete masonry units that appeared when ceiling beams were set on them. He also said that while the pandemic initially stopped construction in March with a slow return to work as safety protocols were put in place, the district has been “very lucky” to see few cases of COVID-19 among workers. “We had two cases early at the site and that was resolved,” he said, with no new cases since then.

The School Board will likely get a full update on the project at Monday’s meeting, to be held virtually. Costello said he will also announce Monday whether the district can go back to a hybrid learning mode or will remain in full-remote mode until early January.

The surge in COVID-19 cases has hit Luzerne County hard, and state recommendations are for districts in the county to go to full-remote learning. Most have, but a few continue to teach students in person. Costello said the state’s weekly report on data in each county, released each Friday, will likely determine whether students will be coming back to school before the end of the year.

The state classifies counties in three categories of risk, low, moderate and substantial, based on incidence rate per 100,000 residents over seven days and rate of positive test results. Luzerne County has been in the substantial category for weeks, and Costello said the recommendation is to stay in remote-only mode until the county is classified as moderate two weeks in a row.

At this point if the state is ranked substantial this Friday, he said, the district will likely stay in remote-only mode until at least the start of January