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Mostly Cloudy District models school additions
Plans include new classrooms, fields and parking
At its meeting last week, the Rockville Centre Board of Education presented the initial plans for the additions to South Side High School and Watson Elementary School that voters approved in March as part of the district’s $49.5 million bond.
The Watson addition will add three classrooms and a small group space, relocate the school’s playground and add a new field.
The work on the high school will be much more extensive. Two additions will be built, with 14 new classrooms. The library will be moved and redesigned, and many existing classrooms will be remodeled. The modular classrooms outside will be demolished to make room for one of the additions, and the second, smaller addition will be adjacent to the school’s field.
The field is also being redone. Lights will be added, and grass will be replaced by artificial turf. The field will be outfitted with more track and field equipment, so it can host long jump and pole vault events, and potentially the steeplechase. The design also includes new bleachers and a new press box.
Plans are not yet finalized, but at the high school, the perimeter of the proposed addition has been spray-painted in red, which gives observers an idea of how large it will be.
“The architecture of the west side [of the high school] is extremely interesting to us,” said Roger Smith, of BBS Architecture, who heads the project. “What we tried to do is take what’s there and the other pieces around the building, and gather those as pieces of architecture and use those on the rest of the building and the additions. I think, for the first time, the building will start to look holistic.”
The larger of the two additions at the high school will finally make the science classrooms — which have long been housed in structures outside the main building that were supposed to be temporary — part of the main building.
The school’s library is also being remodeled. Books will be shifted to movable stacks that will likely line the perimeter of the room, the majority of which will be given over to tables and study space, with computers and Internet access for students.
The high school will also get a new fitness center, with new workout equipment to be purchased with a grant the district received.
