NEW SCOTLAND — The school closed its pool this month declaring a health and safety emergency, but reopened it this week after a $10,000 repair.

“The pool stopped working,” said Dr. James Franchini, the district’s assistant superintendent for finance and operations, at the January school board meeting.

While classes were on winter break, the head custodian found that the pool filter was broken, Franchini wrote the The Enterprise in an e-mail. The interior pipes of the filter were damaged, and caused sand from the filter to enter the pool, he said.

“After consultation with the State Education Department and our architectural firm, we recommended to the board of education that repairing the broken filtration system was an emergency because it was a health and safety issue,” Franchini wrote. In September, the public had passed a $75,000 project to repair the pool’s filtration system.

“The emergency repair done over the December vacation was not part of the $75,000, voter-approved project,” Franchini wrote. “Unfortunately, the process takes time and the system failed before we could get the work done. The work that was done does involve the same filtration system that the larger project addresses.” 

The pool opened on Jan. 16 for public swim programs, which had been postponed during the closure.

“Our school swim team was relocated for practices and competition during this time,” Franchini wrote. “The cost of the repair and clean-up of the sand that entered the pool was approximately $10,500.”

The larger repair project had been proposed to be done over either the December or the February school break, but Franchini said that a timeline for the work depends State Educational Department approval and the schedule of the company that is awarded the bid to do the work.

Other business

In other business, the school board recently:

— Learned from Superintendent Brian Hunt that there will be no late arrival or early dismissal for students at the high school. Previously, juniors and seniors with a majority of credits toward graduation were allowed the late and early options.

Hunt said that the district will offer those students additional electives or work-based learning programs. Hunt wrote a letter to students and families about the topic on Jan. 4; the letter is available on the school website.

In his letter, Hunt wrote that students who are not at school for a minimum amount of time per day according to New York State regulations may affect the school’s state aid amount, lowering the amount of money the district could receive;

— Learned that construction on the pedestrian bridge and garage repairs at the elementary school will begin June 27;

— Reviewed changes to its code of conduct policy to modernize language, according to State Education Department recommendations, addressing transgender students. Under the changes, students can use chosen names or pronouns, and the district will provide accommodation for students to the extent possible.

Hunt said that, while the changes were recommended, the district’s attorney warned that changes would be “difficult to sustain.”

One segment of the changed wording reads, “Every student shall have the right to be addressed by a name and pronoun that corresponds to the student’s gender identity. Regardless of whether a transgender or gender nonconforming student has legally changed their name, schools will allow such students to use a chosen name.

“With respect to all restrooms, locker rooms, or changing facilities, to the extent possible, students shall have access to facilities that correspond to their gender identity,” the section concluded.

The description of the language changes at January’s board meeting constituted the district’s first reading of the policy, Hunt said.

Other changes included removing the word, “public,” from a section on inappropriate conduct; and adding the word, “paraphernalia,” in order to prohibit items and actions like e-cigarettes and vaping.