The Construction Academy under the direction of Mr. Lanford contributed time and talent to keeping school repairs and projects in-house. This gave construction students valuable experience while also saving the school money. Mr. Lanford was also awarded Teacher of the Year for the 2022-23 school year.

Some of the projects included the deck between the locker room and the tennis courts, football huddlebox, shelving in the wrestling locker room, and shelving in janitorial closets. These repairs saved the school money by using recycled material while other repairs extended the life existing construction. Mr. Lanford shared, “A new deck probably would have cost about $ 20,000.00. Students, learning how to make repairs, gained great knowledge, experience, and critical thinking skills, and materials cost under $ 1000.00 to make this deck last at least 3 more years. The huddlebox had a wheel broken off. We added a new bottom, reinstalled the wheels, and made the box workable using approximately $ 130.00 worth of materials. To replace the box with a new one would be $ 4000.00.”

For the wrestling and janitorial shelving, Mr. Lanford used recycled laminate table tops that were donated to the school. “Mr. Sweatman had received some heavy-duty shelf framing but no shelves. Students Ripped existing packaged laminate table tops, from material acquired 3 years ago, and placed that material as shelving. Very clean, and recycled materials. If we had to buy 3⁄4” plywood, it would have taken 9 sheets at $ 75.00 per sheet for a total of $ 675.00. We are creating shelving in the janitorial closet to better maintain inventory and storage of custodial materials. We are using some of the same acquired laminate to build the shelves. If a contractor built and installed this shelving, my guess would be the school would spend about $ 6000.00.”