CRANBERRY TWP — With less than one year until its inaugural school year, the combined Ehrman Crest elementary and middle schools are close to completion, Seneca Valley School Board members heard Monday.

Randy Miller, the district's director of buildings and grounds, showed the board a video of current progress on Ehrman Crest, as well as several other construction projects Seneca Valley has undertaken.

Ehrman — which will supplant the Evans City elementary and middle schools — should be completed well before the 2022 school year.

“We're pretty much beyond 60% completed construction, and we'll be opening this wonderful elementary school and middle school in the fall of 2022,” Miller said.

Additionally, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and related labor and supply-chain issues, Ehrman Crest hasn't cost more or taken more time than the district has expected.

“We're on schedule and on budget, always two good things to say in construction,” Miller added.

Most recently, several board members attended the “topping out” ceremony in May, at which workers lifted into place the final beam onto the structure.

Since then, Miller said, much progress has been made.

Outside the structure, there's much more pavement — Ehrman Crest was simply surrounded by dirt and rocks at the topping out ceremony — with the video showing asphalt placed for the school bus drop-off, parking lots and more. Some windows have been installed, particularly at the school bus entrance which has a nearly all-glass second floor segment.

Inside the building, Ehrman Crest will have a circular ramp to help teach students about different geometric topics as part of Seneca Valley's effort to make it a building not just where learning takes place but one that helps students learn. The video shows the interior hasn't been as nearly completed as the exterior, but much of the bones — floors, studs and others — are in place.

At the site of the old natatorium — the district's new aquatic center opened in February — Seneca Valley is constructing an auxiliary gymnasium, including a small basketball court and a multipurpose room, in which cardiovascular exercise equipment will be located.Behind Ryan Gloyer Middle School, the district is replacing a grass field with turf, which Miller said will be completed around the week of Thanksgiving or the week after.School board president Eric DiTullio noted the turf replacement, as well as the now-completed light installations at the baseball and softball fields, bode well for student athletes.“We're doing that to make sure that weather doesn't affect us — the cancellations — and we get the maximum amount of participation from our students as we can,” DiTullio said. “Ms. (Heather) Lewis (athletics director) had some challenges before, when we had regular fields: Rain would cancel games, they would have to be rescheduled, it was always a lot harder. Now, that's been eliminated. Our student athletes are able to not be involved in cancellations of games just because of a soggy field.”