Some of the work falls under the category of protecting the investment the district already has in their facilities and equipment. The bus compound lot needs to be paved to keep the buses in better shape. (Keeping the buses on a gravel lot as they are now doesn’t allow them to dry out thoroughly, which shortens their useful life.) There is also equipment stored outside that will last longer with additional storage for it built. The roofs at all three schools need recoating in order to continue their ten-year warrantees (it was last done in 2008, and if this bond passes it will be done again in 2018), and the bus compound needs a new roof to replace the 27-year-old roof it currently has.
Some of the work relates to operational needs and making the school function as it’s meant to. Lockers that date to 1961 are too narrow to hold a contemporary student’s backpack, and a master clock system would allow dismissal of classes and bus scheduling to be done more efficiently, preventing the scheduling problems parents have reported waiting on their children’s school buses to arrive. The elementary school’s cafeteria, which is used as a meeting place for assemblies and concerts and as a meeting hall for local community groups, will receive a minor facelift in the repair of its badly torn stage curtain and drab, water-stained cork walls.
A complete list of items in the facilities that need to be addressed is on the school website.
Learn more
The superintendent and members of the Highland BOE have made themselves available at various information sessions leading up to the capital project vote so that the public can ask questions about the project. There will be an “information station” set up at the parking lot at Hannaford’s Plaza in Highland on Saturday, October 25 from noon to 5 p.m. For last minute questions, district reps will be back at Hannaford’s on Tuesday, October 28 from 2 to 6 p.m. the afternoon before the vote closes at 9 p.m.
For more information, visit www.highland-k12.org.
New Paltz
The vote on the $52.9 million proposed capital improvement project will be held on Tuesday, October 28 in the New Paltz High School gymnasium at 130 South Putt Corners Road from noon to 9 p.m. Absentee ballots are available on the district website at www.newpaltz.k12.ny.us.
Financials of the project
State aid will pay for approximately 50 percent of the project. (Some of the work is eligible for 60 percent reimbursement and some of it for 40 percent, so to be on the conservative side, the amount of expected state aid has been rounded off to an expected 50 percent.) Should the vote not pass, and the work ends up getting done on an emergency basis, it will not be eligible for any state aid and taxpayers will end up paying 100 percent of the burden. Repayment of the balance will take 20 years, with the average homeowner in the district paying $20 per $100,000 of assessed value annually for the term of the loan. To help offset its cost, the project is being timed to coincide with the retirement of old debt in order to keep the budget stable.
How they arrived at the numbers
Board of Education member Dominick Profaci said the board arrived at the proposed project after devoting more than a year to holding public hearings, analyzing enrollment projections and building capacities and consulting with professionals to determine the highest priority work. Like the Highland district, Profaci and New Paltz Central School District school Superintendent Maria Rice said they’re only doing the most critical work that has to be done. “Our staff is dedicated and they manage to do wonderful work in spite of the facilities,” said Rice, “but the problems at the facilities are undermining the educational program.” Many of the problems have not been addressed in the past because the district was unable to pass a capital project, she said, noting that the problems are not due to a lack of maintenance but because so much of the facility has simply outlived its useful life.
The $52.9 million project was approved to come up for a vote after other options were considered, including a $24.3 million proposal to just tackle the infrastructure problems and several options that would have involved consolidation of facilities, closing one or more of the district’s four schools. The consolidations would have amounted to a greater increase in the tax levy, said Profaci — as much as six percent more, rather than the one percent in the approved proposal — and in the end, using the Comprehensive Facilities Master Plan developed in February of this year as a guide, the $52.9 million project was deemed to be the least costly to taxpayers while meeting the educational needs of district students.
What a “yes” vote on the bond will pay for
A great deal of the work needs to be done at the middle school, which is the oldest facility in the district and the most degraded and lacking in space, but the project will involve work at all four schools. It will not involve any relocation of students out of their buildings.
A significant portion of the proposed project has to do with replacing failing, outdated systems and infrastructures and making improvements to indoor air quality, both for the health and safety of students and staff as well as to meet current required codes. Heating, cooling and ventilation systems are insufficient for the spaces they’re used in, and safety issues are numerous, including electrical panels so old the breakers intended to trip in an emergency are being used as on/off switches. Wiring and switches dating to the 1970s are not up to code, and loose and cracked masonry on the exterior of the middle school threatens the integrity of the entire structure.
Replacement parts are unavailable for kitchen equipment that dates to the 1950s and the roof installed in 1993 has already outlived its 20-year life. A roof leak in the middle school gymnasium is being caught in a tarp and channeled into a garden hose. Exterior walls have rotted, with the underlying concrete reduced to pebbles, and original plumbing, water supply and steam lines along with sanitary waste systems have deteriorated, with all systems operating past their useful lives.
Classrooms are lacking in adequate space and storage and badly laid out; the 120-member band practices next door to sixth grade social studies classes and across a small courtyard from other classrooms attempting to study. The auditorium, used as chorus room, a second gym and for indoor recess, is inadequately sized with insufficient ventilation for the amount of students it serves. The cafeteria is too small, and because there’s no storage in the building, students perch on wrestling mats stored in the room because there’s no other place to put them. The “home and careers” classroom was originally designed for about a dozen students but now houses a mandated course with upwards of 30 students in the space. Even the nurse’s office is too small, with no privacy for students or for staff to make sensitive phone calls to parents. There is no ADA compliance at the middle school for the handicapped — which affects students temporarily on crutches as well as the permanently disabled — and the school is not equipped with updated technology necessary to accommodate future federal mandates for testing.
Learn more
The New Paltz Board of Education has been holding meetings to inform the public about the project, but as of press time there are no additional meetings scheduled. For information about the project, the district website has a very informative narrated video and slideshow as well as a detailed list of work that needs to be done at www.newpaltz.k12.ny.us.
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