This is the fifth in a series of posts about the capital project needs of the Springville school district. In this series, I am describing the proposed scope of work in each of our buildings. Today we focus on one of our elementary schools, Springville Elementary School.
The most pressing need in our district currently exists at SES and it was not in the December 2015 proposed project. The 1998 portion of our roof at SES is failing. We have brought in the architect, construction management firm, and roofing experts and all have said they have not previously seen a rooftop fail like this one. And of course, it is out of the warranty period. If we do not pass this project, we will have to find a way to pay for the repairs to this roof which total $968,000 from our local budget. That’s not a ploy to get this project passed, it’s simply the reality of a problem that we face. In the meantime, we are taking care of the rooftop with a stop gap measure and hoping for a mild winter in the 2016-17 school year.
This proposed scope also includes new items as follows: replace/enlarge unit ventilator louvers at south wing classrooms including abatement to new code requirements ($71,000) and replace piping in the south wing/modify pumps due to new code requirements ($56,000). Replacing pavement, curbing and sidewalks is again urgently needed for this school and is the most significant expense.
Removed from the December 2015 proposed project scope is the relocation of the main office area closer to the front entrance to increase security and relocate existing adjacent offices and Nurse’s office ($825,000). If you’ve been following along with this entire series of posts, you can see by now that I’m recommending the removal of all of these office relocations for security purposes. It is my opinion that the moves are hugely expensive, require building new offices when those that we have are adequate, and give us a false sense of security. There is no fail safe security measure—the best security measures we can possibly implement are those that require frequent drills so that everyone in the system knows the best way to behave in an emergency, how to think on their feet and how to follow the protocols put into place by building and district safety plans.
Also removed from the scope is the installation of new carbon dioxide detection systems ($25,000)—we did this in house in our buildings—and the replacement of the exterior wall located at the overhang. That work has to be done under an immediate emergency project and I expect the work to be completed soon.
The total bond estimate of work to be completed at Springville Elementary is $6,527,000.
We will be reviewing the proposed project in detail at our July 5 meeting, for the BOE’s consideration. Please contact me with any questions, concerns or feedback. Thank you.