Pounding hammers and whining drills replaced the sounds of books dropping and students conversing in many of Worthington's schools this summer.

Tim Gehring, director of facility management, said about $4.5 million remains from the $18.7 million set aside for capital improvements from the 2006 bond issue.

A construction project at McCord Middle School was necessary to fit in all of Perry Middle School students, who will attend McCord as part of the district's middle school restructuring.

"We are renovating what was formerly the Family and Consumer Science Room into two separate classroom spaces," Gehring said. "We have also increased the locker count to accommodate more students. The locker replacement project in that school was previously identified as a project for the 2006 bond issue, so we are just installing more lockers than originally planned."

The classroom renovation cost is about $55,842.

The total cost of the projects being completed this summer will be about $2.46 million, Gehring said.

Concrete repair, parking lot and path overlay will take place at many of the schools, including at Granby, Liberty, McCord, Sutter Park, Worthington Hills, Colonial Hills, Perry, Slate Hill, Wilson Hill and Worthingway.

The overlay in the parking lot at Sutter Park will cost $201,000.

For other overlay projects, expenses range from $8,400 to overlay the bike path at Worthington Hills to $180,000 to overlay the parking lot at Granby.

Interior painting of corridors and classrooms, countertop replacements, one kitchen ceiling replacement and locker replacements will take place at Thomas Worthington and Worthington Kilbourne high schools, with locker replacement at Kilbourne costing $785,400.

The new lockers at McCord Middle School will cost about $288,750.

Thomas Worthington also will get a new auditorium lighting and control system at a cost of $300,000.

Other repairs and replacements include a cooling tower replacement for $94,900 at the Worthington Education Center; exhaust fans repair and replacement at Worthington Kilbourne for $126,500; and carpet replacement at Liberty for $180,000.

Gehring said another major project will add air-conditioning and ventilation systems to all server rooms at all of the elementary schools.

"We are appreciative of the financial support from our community that allows us to reinvest in our facility infrastructure so it does not fall into more costly disrepair in the future," he said. "We want to provide positive learning environments for our students."