District busy with summer construction

Students in all of Rockville Center School District buildings will begin the year on Sept. 3 with some new additions.

Through funding from school budgets, grants and the $45.9 million bond that was passed in the spring, myriad changes and improvements have been made at Rockville Centre schools.

Much of the bond work has yet to begin. The two biggest projects — additions to South Side High School and Watson Elementary School — are still in the planning phases.

“All of the design discussions with the different faculty and administrators have been going on,” said Robert Bartels, assistant superintendent for business. “We’re close to a final plan to submit to the state for the high school and Watson.”

Every building in the district has had some work done. At the middle school, bond money was used to upgrade the track. The entire track had a new underlayment installed and is being resurfaced. Bartels said he hopes work will be completed by the start of school. If it isn’t, it should be done a week or so later.

Grant money was used at the middle school to put in new ceilings in the locker rooms, redo entrance masonry and install new doors. Additional, capital funds from the budget went to masonry work on the front stoop.

Capital expenditures funded the renovation of the high school gym. The bleachers were replaced and the floor was refinished.

The auditorium at Covert Elementary school was renovated. The masonry was fixed, doors were replaced and the stage itself was repaired.

Watson and Wilson schools had various repairs made, including flooring repairs to six classrooms at Watson and main entrance portico repairs at Wilson.

“We really have an awful lot of projects going on,” Bartels said.

There are also a number of district-wide projects that were completed over the summer. A new telephone system was installed in district buildings and 200 security cameras were added.

One project that many were looking forward to — air conditioning in classrooms — was held up this summer. The district planned to start the installation of air conditions over the summer months and then continue to add more throughout the year.

“The problem we’ve seen this summer is that there has still been reconstruction due to Superstorm Sandy, which has caused delay on a lot of the split air conditioning units,” Bartels said. “There’s a longer lead time in getting those pieces of equipment. We hoped to have more in for the beginning of school, but it just got delayed.”