In addition to its annual budget proposition and School Board election, the Kingston City School District will also have a $162.5 million five-year capital project on the ballot on Tuesday, May 16.
Kingston High School, which recently completed its own multi-year “Second Century” project, is not part of the new plan, much of which revolves around air-conditioning and ventilation, which school officials have said are crucial upgrades in a post-COVID, climate changing world.
“We need to realize is summer lasts longer and starts earlier,” said Superintendent Paul Padalino during a virtual forum held on Wednesday, April 26. “We can have conversations about global warming all day long, but we know that for a fact.”
Air-conditioning in classrooms is about more than just keeping cool, said school officials. Padalino cited studies that showed that when the classroom temperature gets over 80 degrees, productivity and learning drops to zero. And as hot weather extends further into the school year, that can result in significant learning loss.
“If we’re looking at 30 days, 40 days a year where the classrooms are going above 80 degrees, we know there are 30 or 40 days of the year that our students are losing instruction and our students aren’t able to focus,” Padalino said. “I haven’t always been an advocate of, of air conditioning schools, but I think the research really turned us all around and made us realize that having the temperatures in the rooms be in a certain place really facilitates learning. And we need to make that happen.”
According to the proposal, M. Clifford Miller Middle School would receive $9.9 million in air-conditioning and ventilation upgrades, J. Watson Bailey Middle School $13.8 million, Chambers Elementary $5 million, Crosby Elementary $5.8 million, Ernest C. Myer Elementary $5.6 million, George Washington Elementary $5.5 million, Harry L. Edson Elementary $6.4 million, J.F.K. Elementary $3.9 million, and Robert R. Graves $8.5 million.
Other areas covered in the plan include:
M. Clifford Miller Middle School: $13.7 million for wood floor reinforcing, elevator renovation, exterior rescue ladders, science lab improvements, and fixing a water leak over the auditorium stage.
J. Watson Bailey Middle School: $29.4 million to add 80 parking spaces, new water services, concrete curb replacement, replacing windows and roofing, main office renovations, repair of a gym divider roof beam, refurbishing the kitchen loading dock, and a renovation of the auditorium.
Chambers Elementary School: $6 million to add 30 parking spaces, repair walkways, exterior playground and drainage improvements, replace exterior kindergarten doors, undergo restroom upgrades, replace the kitchen grease interceptor, add water bottle fill stations, add a portable generator hook-up, and upgrade the fire alarm system.
Crosby Elementary School: $8.3 million for 33 additional parking spaces, exterior walkway repair, playground relocation, installing window shades, replacing the metal ceiling in the kitchen, renovating the cafeteria and upgrading the fire protection system.
Myer Elementary School: $9.7 million for 14 new parking spaces, sewer system replacement, exterior stair replacement, resurfacing the playground, replacing termite-damaged floors, replacing 62-year-old windows, and refurbishing interior stairs and railings.
George Washington Elementary School: $13.4 million for green upgrades to the outdoor and community activity areas, parking lot repaving, exterior lighting, facade brick repointing, adding an elevator, installing rescue windows, and auditorium renovation.
Harry L. Edson Elementary School: $10.2 million for sidewalk and access improvements, repaving the path to the lower recreation field, adding windows, restroom renovations, fire protection system upgrades, replacing kitchen waste piping, adding water bottle fill stations, installing a portable generator hook up, and fire alarm system upgrades.
John F. Kennedy Elementary School: $5.1 million for interior door replacements, restroom renovation, replacing water lines, refurbishing kitchen waste piping, adding water bottle filling stations, fire alarm upgrades, and public address system upgrades.
Graves Elementary School: $11.3 million to create a new parent pickup area and new bus area, replace soccer field drains, add a canopy to a portable building, replace windows, restroom renovations, and replace wood doors and frames.
Also on the panel for the virtual forum was Armand Quadrini, managing principal of KSQ Design, the New York City and Tulsa, Oklahoma-based architecture firm that’s had a decades-long relationship with the district. Quadrini echoed Padalino’s sentiment about the need to improve air quality, adding that in addition to following the data, the district’s plan also follows the direction of the community.
“We heard through community surveys requests for air-conditioning in the schools,” Quadrini said. “In addition to air-conditioning, ventilation is a super important overarching improvement in all of our schools, meeting or exceeding minimum code requirements for filtration. So all those elements and the collateral needs that support the good mechanical system and air-conditioning are included in the bond project.”
But even if the public approves the project, these changes won’t happen overnight. According to Jeff Andrews, senior project manager for Albany-based BBL Construction Services, TK
“There are long lead times on mechanical equipment, so a lot of the HVAC equipment that’s coming out nowadays has a 42-70 week lead time,” Andrews said, adding that if the project is approved, designing HVAC and ventilation systems for each of the targeted schools would be completed, followed by a review by the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to ensure everything that is required is covered, and then a bidding process would begin.
“So there’s a decent amount of time before these documents are in the hand of the contractors and a decent amount of time before those equipment pieces are received,” Andrews said. “We’re still probably two years before we have the equipment in place to deal with some of the systems that we’re going to be working on.”
Padalino said that it was a favorable time to undertake a project like this, as the KCSD currently receives state aid covering approximately 76.7 percent of aidable costs. Making use of a $10 million capital reserve would also lessen the burden on local taxpayers, Padalino said, estimating that the project would increase a local homeowner’s taxes by $9 per $200,000 of assessed value.
Padalino also touted the district’s fiscal pragmatism over the past decade, with capital projects undertaken during that time coming in under budget by $16.8 million. Furthermore, school officials have also said that a larger project now would set the district up for decades to come.
“We are looking to put the Kingston City School District in a place where we are long-term healthy, with 21st century buildings for our students, so our teachers and our faculty and staff can do the job that they’re there to do, which is educate our students,” Padalino said. “This is a big project, but I think we’ve shown ourselves to be fiscally responsible around big projects in the past. We’re doing what’s best for our students, faculty, staff, and community. And we really hope that people will look favorably on this project when they come out to vote on May 16th.”
Join the family! 
