Most of the construction associated with the project approved in the 2006 referendum is complete. All that remains now is some paving, and getting a new pool bubble constructed at High School South.
The renovations to South included placing partitions in the open space classroom areas, adding a new performing arts center/auditorium and a new gymnasium and auxiliary gym. The current gym will be turned into four new classrooms. The third phase of the project also included minor changes to High School North — where one room was changed into a science room — and renovations to South’s music and art rooms.
With the work in the art rooms at High School South complete, minor work, like paving, is all that remains.
“All of the major things are pretty much done,” said Larry Shanok, superintendent of finance. “There are some things that need to wait for spring, like the final paving” of the new parking lot at South. The final asphalt will not be done until warmer weather arrives.
The process to replace the pool bubble has finally begun, with the project going out to bid, and bids returned. Those bids are being reviewed by the board’s attorney.
The bubble over South’s swimming pool — an air-supported structure which is similar to a giant tarp that supported by air, so that hot air is blown into it — needs to be replaced. The current bubble is the third the district has had, and most bubbles have a lifespan of only 10 years. Each summer, the tarp is removed, and from October to May every year, it is back up.
The issue was with the state’s interpretation of the definition of a temporary structure, which the school district believed the bubble was. This is simply because it is taken down for months during the warmer weather. Whether it should be considered a new structure, or a rehabilitation of a current one, was at issue. The state, in its feedback to the district, called for sprinkler lines inside the bubble. But officials argued that because it is an air-supported structure, it could not support a sprinkler line.
Shanok says that “the state decided that a bubble is no longer a bubble, and that it has to meet additional rules. That has added to the costs, but we have a general agreement with the state of what that should be, and that was included in the bid specs.”
