VOORHEESVILLE — Should a new $2 million gym be part of the elementary school reconstruction project"

The school board is now considering two separate upgrade projects for the district’s buildings — one for $5.9 million, and the other for $7.9 million.

The major difference, is that one repairs the existing lower gym at the elementary school and the other turns the lower gym into three classrooms and builds a new gym over the courtyard heading to the back recreation field. The new classrooms could be used to house a full-day kindergarten program, which may eventually be required by the state.

The district plans to have a capital project proposition out to the voters this fall, so construction can begin in the summer of 2007.

Michael Fanning, the district’s architect for this project from Dodge, Chamberlin, Luzine, and Weber Associates, has re-figured and adjusted estimated costs since his initial announcements last fall due to the increased cost of raw material expenses.

The total cost for refurbishing both the high school and elementary school is estimated to be $5,868,000 or $7,999,000, largely dependant on the gym option that is chosen.

Clayton A. Bouton projects

The scope of renovations at the building that serves both the high school and middle school, Clayton A. Bouton, has been scaled back since the fall by the district’s building committee and will now cost $491,000. The elementary school’s minimal projects will cost $5.4 million dollars. But Fanning is proposing a handful of alternative projects totaling an additional $2.1 million.

The additional alternative projects include the new gym and a few smaller items: more electrical panels at the elementary school, $95,000; and ceiling work at the middle school, $67,000.

Converting the lower gym into three class rooms and adding a brand new gymnasium would cost $1.9 million. The actual expense would be $2.5 million, but that price is offset by eliminating some of the repair costs to the lower gym represented in the $5.4 million estimate that would no longer need to be completed.

Repairing the high school roof was pulled out of the district-wide projects planned for 2007 and brought before voters in a $190,000 proposition on Tuesday, which taxpayers approved overwhelmingly. (See related story.) The roof repairs will now go out to bid, and construction will begin this summer.

Half of the expense at the high school is now for reconstructing the tennis courts. It will cost $264,000 to rip out the existing courts and repave, surface, and fence. The existing tennis court has been in place since 1958, Assistant Superintendent for Business Sarita Winchell said.

Elementary school projects

The largest expense at the elementary school is replacing all the unit ventilators in each room, which circulates fresh air from outside into each classroom. Exhaust and ventilation upgrades are needed throughout the elementary school building not just in classrooms, but also in corridors, bathrooms, and the auditorium, for a total price of about $2.9 million to improve the quality of air flow.

Also in the minimal elementary school plan, is replacing ceiling tiles and asbestos classroom floor tiles. Strategies need to be implemented to prevent leaks and flooding. Besides reinforcing the school’s foundation and walls part of the scheme is to re-grade the lawn in a downward slope away from the building, to install subsurface drainage, and to reconstruct the cistern and storm drainage piping.
Replacing windows in the 1960’s wing of the elementary school will cost $213,000. And a new building-wide fire-alarm system will cost $254,000. "The current system is functioning but doesn’t have a lot of life left," Fanning said.

Fanning is also recommending adding water softeners to the heating systems and domestic hot-water systems in both buildings, but not to the cold drinking water since it affects the taste. This will reduce the water hardness, reducing the wear on the piping systems. This will cost $34,000 at the elementary school, and $48,000 at Clayton A. Bouton.

Board member James Coffin and Richard Brackett, who are on the building committee, questioned the need for a complete refurbishment of some of the bathrooms.

Coffin said spending half a million dollars on bathrooms makes him take a step back. He recently inspected a school bathroom, he said, where the tile on the walls and floors are in pretty good shape. Some fixtures do need replacing, he said, but he questioned the need to tear up all the walls and floors.

Fanning said that the district will be putting in fixtures that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Replacing fixtures often means replacing tiling completely, and removing the walls to get to the plumbing.
Fanning said he’d rather see the district re-do two bathrooms completely rather then half renovate four. "You can cut back the scope in that way," he said.

Gym pros and cons

Gaining three classrooms at the elementary school would support full-day kindergarten, if the state mandates it. Currently, Voorheesville offers a half-day Kindergarten program.

School board member David Gibson said that it seems, at this point, it’s not a matter of if full-day kindergarten will go in effect but rather when.

Elementary school Principal Kenneth Lien said that, currently, Voorheesville Elementary hosts one BOCES class for special education, which the building probably could not hold when full day kindergarten is adopted.

Gibson said the courtyard is most certainly a pleasant space, but he asked Lien how much it is actually used. Lien said that it’s barely used.
"Aesthetically, it’s very pleasing," elementary school teacher Kathy Fiero said. She’s concerned about the proposal for a modern gymnasium in the midst of a "beautiful Art Deco building," she said.

Usually the main concern for maintaining historic architecture in a growing building is maintaining the street-side view and front facade, Fanning said; the courtyard is in back of the school.

Another setback to the proposed two-story-high gymnasium is that it will be blocking off windows to six rooms, four of which will be left with no outdoor windows at all, requiring those rooms to be equipped with air-conditioning, Fanning said. He added that none of those spaces would be used as regular classrooms. One of the rooms is currently a teachers’ study.

Also, what is now the Kids Club office, for a after school program, would be reduced in size and be used as gym storage.

The existing locker rooms would be a good way down the hall from where the new gym would be located. Lien said he does not think that it would be a major problem to have kids walk unescorted down the hall to the gym, past classes in session.

Fiero said she recognizes that the district doesn’t have a large parcel of land to work with at the elementary-school site, with the road to one side and the creek to the other. She then pointed out that, if the new gym in the courtyard is the route the board chooses, then memorial trees would have to be relocated respectfully.

An audience member suggested considering relocating to a new building.

Coffin said that he doesn’t think residents would want to abandon this elementary school building, which has been a community center and historic place filled with collective memories. Additionally, constructing a whole new building is considerably more expensive.

Rather then build a new school building, when or if the district is ever strapped for space, classrooms could be built where the buses are located now, and the bus garage could be moved off site, Coffin said.

Other business

In other business, the board:

— Accepted a donation from the Voorheesville Community and School Foundation, of $10,000 to start the funding of portable outdoor bleachers for the middle school, and accepted grant money secured through Assemblymen John McEneny for the same project. The foundation, the PTA and booster club will be donating the rest of the cost later on. The foundation’s annual gala dinner fund-raiser is this Saturday, May 20;

— Gave tenure to elementary-school teachers Michael Burns and Jennifer Scott; science teachers Jessica Bradshaw and Maria Karatzou; and business teacher Heather Garvey;

— Accepted the retirement of C.W. Clarke, a bus driver for 15-and-a-half years; Marie Fugitt, a bus driver for 14 years; Dennis M. Ulion, an elementary school-teacher for 29 years; and Susan J. Beemer an elementary teacher who has worked at Voorheesville for 30 years; and

— Appointed Dorfman-Robbie as the district’s new auditing firm, which will conduct the school’s independent audit at the end of this fiscal year — June, 30, 2006. The company will be paid $11,700.