MONROE — Winter in the Midwest is not the best time for new construction activity, but crews working on the new, $88 million school building project on Monroe’s eastern edge are making progress and preparing the growing site for cold weather.

That was the message heard by the School District of Monroe Board of Education, during its Nov. 25 regular meeting. The board watched a new drone video from the site that highlighted five months of construction thus far. Much of that time featured very good weather for making progress on the building, officials said, but now winter is coming and that pace is likely to slow.

“We are definitely getting ready for winter,” said Tony Buss of CG Schmidt, which is managing to the project for the district. “It’s on track.”

Among the activities still going on at the site — despite the cold — is blasting activity to prepare the area around a new football field. A structure has been built to protect cement and other materials from the weather. And slowly but surely, something resembling a school is starting emerge on the hilly prairie.

“You can see the building start to take shape,” said Superintendent Rodney Figueroa.

Precast pieces of the building are due to arrive on site at about the end of the month, officials said.

A dashboard showing spending, in near real time, on the project was also debuted for the board. Construction on the high school building is about 8% complete. The entire project — including improvements to Abe Lincoln grade school approved in the same referendum — is at about 15%.

Change orders also are tracked on the new dashboard and officials learned that the school project has a daily “burn rate” of spending of over $17,000 per day, but it is on track and budget.

Interior walls can be seen going up in the kitchen and administration areas, and locker room interior footings were poured. Other developments on site include:

●  Waterproofing and backfilling gym walls. 

●  Locker room underground plumbing.

●  Interior masonry walls in the administration and kitchen areas.

●  Plumbing rough-in, auditorium area

●  Additional blasting for site prep, as weather allows

Several construction-related videos, updates and other information on the project are available for district residents to view on the district’s website.