Board takes look at high schools

Each year as the calendar turns to January, the Valley Stream Central High School District hosts its annual facilities tour so the Board of Education and members of the public can get a glimpse of potential projects on the horizon and to see how their tax dollars are being used.

District administrators led the tour through each of the four schools on Jan. 11 where principals asked the board to consider funding $1 million in building and equipment projects in the 2014-15 budget.

Principal Cliff Odell kicked of the tour at North High School where he brought the board and residents to a handful of locations he’d like to see upgraded, and others that recently underwent some changes. Each of the proposed projects were close in cost and include a sprinkler system for the front field, a backstop replacement for the softball field and refinishing the gymnasium floor with an oil base as opposed to a water base.

Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Dr. Wayne Loper noted that North is the district’s only school with a water-based gymnasium floor, which requires more upkeep than an oil-based floor.

Odell also led the group to the school’s new computer lab, which like each of the other three schools, was built over the summer and paid for in the current budget. Each of the building principals said the new labs are used nearly every period of the week by students.

Jim Nothel, the district’s director of facilities, and his crew had a busy summer at North as they also reconfigured a family consumer science room into a multi-purpose room that’s now used for math classes in the morning and art in the afternoon. “We needed extra space,” Odell said of the reconfigured classroom. “Picking this up was significant for us.”

The tour then shifted to South High School where Principal Maureen Henry told board members of a need for a new choral riser, with an estimated price tag of $42,000. The riser, which is about 12 years old, Henry explained, is used every day and for many after-school functions.

Also on the South portion of the tour was a trip to the girls’ locker room, which, Henry said, is in need of new locks for the lockers. The spindle locks would be installed in both the boys’ and girls’ locker rooms.