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Overcast Summer repairs begun at OHS, School No. 2
The students are gone, but it’s a busy summer at School No. 2 and Oceanside High School. The schools are undergoing more than $6.8 million in renovations, part of a $30 million bond that Oceanside School District voters approved in May 2014. So far, the district has borrowed $12 million of the bond for these projects. It is a 15-year loan with an interest rate of 2.8 percent.
The parking lot and walkways at School No. 2 will be repaved, at a cost of $371,000, by Fasco Asphalt and Paving, of Kings Park. Brooklyn-based P&M Door will replace a few doors at School No. 2 for about $50,000. Proton Construction Corporation, of Brooklyn, will replace the roofs of both schools and exterior masonry at the high school for almost $6.4 million.
The high school will receive new speakers for the public address system at the football field. East Williston-based Valco Inc. was originally hired to install a steel structure for the existing speakers, for $64,700, but the district canceled the contract. “It was much more than we thought was reasonable, given what we were going to create,” Superintendent Phyllis Harrington said.
Instead, the district hired G Scott Designs, of East Meadow, to install smaller speakers and reconfigure the sound system, for $11,500. The district will also pay Valco Inc. $7,249 for work that was already done, ultimately saving more than $45,000.
The work began on July 8, and will continue until school reopens. The asphalt at School No. 2 has been dug out and is now dirt.
There will be work on doors district-wide during the upcoming school year, and work on the high school roof will continue next summer. Other projects at other schools are scheduled through the summer of 2018.
“We had to do a lot of shuffling to get this to happen,” said Chris Van Cott, the district’s assistant superintendent for business. He added that summer school classes that would have been held at the high school have been moved to the middle school.
This summer’s work is phase 2A of the district’s multi-year construction plan. “This doesn’t represent everything that needs to be done,” Van Cott explained. “We’re not going to be finished completely. Work will continue on the weekends and in future summers.”
