March Madness games played in all three cafeterias during times when they are on in the days leading up to spring break, according to Principal Tom Harmas. He also said AdvancedED, a company that evaluates schools, will visit CHS as well as other schools in the Carmel Clay School district in the near future to provide feedback for teachers and administrators. Looking ahead to next year, Harmas said a goal date of the first week of August has been set for when all repairs in the Freshman Gym will be completed after the Dec. 26 boiler explosion.

Harmas said all March Madness games available on Channel 8 during lunches played in all cafeterias on March 21, 22 and 28. Student body president Tim Metken said there were additional March Madness activities for students.

“For March Madness, we created a few different tournament challenges. The first one is what we’ve always done, which is a school-wide one for SRTs to compete against each other. The winner of that gets a pizza party. The new thing this year is there will also be a door-decoration contest where SRTs can decorate their doors and we think it will be fun,” Metken said. “The other thing is a district-wide bracket challenge. This was something we discussed at a principal advisory committee and thought it would be fun.”

Harmas said evaluations from AdvancedED will provide valuable insight into improvements teachers and administrators can make in the future.

“It’s nice just to have an outside eye,” Harmas said. “It won’t change anything that will be going on at this point, but it gives us a reflection of what we’re doing as a school, especially in professional development and especially in teaching and learning. It will emphasize our strong points and point out some areas we need to get better on to allow us to focus on those areas.”

After the explosion, many of the immediate repairs were temporary, such as the roof put on above the Fieldhouse. However, Harmas said after figuring out logistics with insurance companies and contractors, full reconstruction of these areas will soon begin.

Harmas said repairs that remain include installing a permanent roof, cinderblock walls along the sides of the Fieldhouse, a permanent floor in the Fieldhouse and Freshman Gym, reinstalling stairs and doorways by the entrance near the Fieldhouse, and reconstructing the volleyball locker room.

“The reconstruction is going to start very soon,” Harmas said. “The bidding process is going to be going out. Looking at the timeline, everything is supposed to be done the first week of August. ‘Supposed to be’ and ‘is’ are two different things, but all the insurance companies stuff is taken care of, and the bidding and all that, so we are excited about that.” By Carson TerBush