EAST LONGMEADOW – The East Longmeadow School Committee discussed an update on current capital projects relating to the school system and their former capital plan, as well as a draft of their next five-year capital plan at their Oct. 7 meeting.

Superintendent Gordon Smith ran through a list of current capital projects with the School Committee explaining where the projects stood as of Oct. 7. He noted that the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) accelerated program for windows and doors is in its final stages on the accounting side. Once everything is approved, the information will go to the MSBA and that will close the project.

Roof replacement is ongoing, Smith shared, nothing that crews are finishing up work – mostly the sheet metal and drip guards that go along the edge of the roof. He noted that crews are finalizing anything that comes up, and “if everything goes well, we’ll get to the punch list and start to move into the same type of stuff we’re seeing in windows and doors.”

In regard to modular classrooms, Smith explained that they’ve “hit a little challenge,” and then subsequently rephrased, “not a little challenge – a pretty large challenge with this one.” He continued to explain that in December of 2018, an architectural firm was selected for this project. However between January and March of this year the school committee was notified that the firm that they selected went out of business.

The one “silver lining,” as Smith put it, is that the modular classrooms will no longer be modular classrooms – they will be traditionally built.

“Once our schedule was completely gone, we got costs on modular and stick built. Stick is less money, modular provides you the scheduling and speed,” Smith explained. “We had already lost all that [the schedule] – we figured we might as well look at both and put something in place that will last and put our students in a good situation.”

At Mapleshade, Smith shared that they’re in the midst of a similar challenging situation with steam piping. When this project went out to bid in the spring of last year, they did not receive any bidders. Smith attributes this in part to the schedule and timeline, but mostly due to the fact that the work involved workers to go into the tunnels of Mapleshade which are roughly a four–feet by four–feet space, and subsequently welding. Since then, they did get one contractor who is willing to take a look at the job and meeting the timeline, however the cost that was originally anticipated to cover the entire project is only going to cover about half of it. Now, they are requesting a “phase two” of funding, which comes to $500,000.

Also at Mapleshade, interior and exterior door replacement has gone out to bid. The contractor is set to begin this project over the upcoming holiday break.

At Mountain View, two years ago the School Committee approved a new clock and PA system. That was completed, and then in 2017 they approved the classroom bathroom hot water renovation which was completed over the summer, Smith said.

A new clock and PA system was also approved and completed for Birchland Park. In addition, IT upgraded Birchland’s phone system, and installed a new boiler expansion tank in the schools boiler room three years ago.

East Longmeadow High School received a renovation in the athletic offices over the summer, as they removed asbestos and carpet, placed in a new carpet, and the HVAC system was cleaned.

Also over the course of the summer work was completed with the DPW, with an electrical contractor and with National Grid to install new step-down transformers at the High School. Smith explained that though this wasn’t a capital project, at the parents information session that took place earlier in the year in regard to the high school, there was “a lot of discussion regarding the electrical system and what do we do if it were to basically stop.” At the time, Smith said, there were not a lot of answers.

“We now have stepped down the power coming in with a new transformer,” he explained, further noting that if a power failure were to occur, now the issue could be isolated to the specific area in the building and be fixed while running other parts of the building.

In addition to this, the High School also received a new clock and PA system.

To watch the School Committee meeting for yourself, go to ELCAT’s YouTube page or the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuvdMJNrHj8&t=1993s