Operations

The Fremont Public Schools Operations Department is dedicated to providing a safe, healthy and clean environment for our students and staff. Our department is comprised of 3 maintenance/grounds Technician Specialists.  The members of our team are, Rusty Booskoel-grounds / maintenance, Kevin Driscoll-grounds/utility maintenance, Harry Braafhart-Assistant Director of Operations, and Sean Seabolt-Director. 

Fremont Public School district consists of 6 instructional buildings, 15 non-instructional buildings totaling over 500,000 square feet, 5 playgrounds and 16 athletic fields.  Our facilities set on approximately 266 acres.

In 2007, Fremont Public Schools and Newaygo County RESA entered into a shared services agreement to share one Director of Operations to serve both Fremont Public Schools and Newaygo County RESA. This arrangement allows for not only sharing the Director, but also man-power such as grounds-keeping, skilled maintenance and equipment. With the state requiring the consolidation of non-instructional services, Fremont Public Schools and Newaygo County RESA were ahead of the requirements by entering into this arrangement.

The daily cleaning of our buildings are maintained by our cleaning services contractor, Grand Rapids Building Services (GRBS).

As we enter into 2021, we can’t help but look back on what we all learned from 2020.  The way we see and do our jobs have forever changed.  A concerted effort to create and maintain a safe and healthy environment for our stakeholders, the students, staff and community of Fremont have now become our forefront and focus.  The 2020-2021 school year began with face to face instruction and with it came the new normal of touch point cleanings and mid-day disinfection performed by our Custodial Services contractor GRBS.  With those mandates, we were able to work with GRBS to manipulate our cleaning schedules to accommodate the mid-day disinfecting as well as the social distancing requirements.  Lunch times were spread out with the use of hallways and gymnasiums to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19.  New routines were established for daily cleaning methods to again help mitigate the spread. 

The summer of 2020 was challenging for Fremont Public Schools as budgets tightened due to uncertain times, summer layoffs took place.  With reduced staffing, minimal project work was completed.  We were able to successfully maintain our grounds and prepare for the upcoming start of the school year.  While we were able to see the start of the new track being installed, we were able to replace the irrigation system on both the football practice and competition field.  A complete group re-lamp took place on all football field lights. 

During the Christmas break we were able to change all the filters in the heating and cooling units district wide.  Some painting and renovation work in the old kitchen area at Quest.  A new supply storage room was built at Daisy Brook.  At Pathfinder, we installed a new boiler.  The Middle School had some heating lines develop some leaks and was repaired. 

The operations department has responded to over 500 work order so far this fiscal year.

As it is already the end of February, we still have some of the winter ahead of us, we are already looking to spring to begin work on our athletic fields for competition as well as preparing our equipment. 

Sean Seabolt-Director of Operations