FISHER — The Fisher school district broke ground this week on its long-awaited addition to and renovation of the senior/junior high school. The addition will be a wing for the junior high students that will include 10 classrooms and a computer and science lab. There will also be new restrooms accessible to outdoor playing fields. It will also include a fitness facility that the village of Fisher will help pay for and the community will be allowed to use.

Work on the addition starts now. Superintendent Barb Thompson said a new traffic and parking plan has gone into effect already to allow for construction crews and equipment. That work will go on in the month remaining that school is in session. When students are out of the building this summer, renovation work on the old building will proceed as well. Thompson said she hopes new classrooms will be completed by December so students will move into those, allowing for renovation of the existing space, including new electrical and mechanical systems and other updating to promote energy conservation.

Thompson has said a portion of the retrofitting work will be paid with health, life and safety funds. In November 2010 the board voted to issue $6.1 million in general obligation bonds that will be financed by the county 1 percent sales tax for capital projects.

Also Thompson said she can't recommend the board contribute financially to the all-weather track, bleachers and new press box project. She said she didn't want to discount the project's importance but both she and board president Lesa Lammle recall the project being presented initially as 100 percent privately funded. Lammle said the board has also committed to the cost of maintaining the track which at some point will include its resurfacing.

Greg Liestman has headed up the project. He said last month nearly half of the $500,000 needed has been raised and he hopes all the money will be in place by the end of the year. The village of Fisher, using tax increment district funds, has contributed $60,000 to the track project.