Posted 1:22 am Wednesday, March 25, 2009
TISD Board To Look At Saving Money, Time On Clarkston
By MEGAN MIDDLETON
Staff Writer
Tyler ISD stands to save almost a half a million dollars when it builds its new Clarkston Elementary School and won't face as much of a time crunch to get it open because of some creative work by district officials and the principal.
Staff Writer
Tyler ISD stands to save almost a half a million dollars when it builds its new Clarkston Elementary School and won't face as much of a time crunch to get it open because of some creative work by district officials and the principal.
The TISD school board will consider approving a change order for the work on the new Clarkston at its regular board meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday.
The meeting will take place at the Dr. Jack L. Davidson Conference Center in the Jim Plyler Instructional Complex, 807 W. Glenwood. Closed session begins at 6 p.m.
The change order is for $496,375, lowering the Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) for Clarkston from $14,088,879 to $13,592,504.
The district is saving money because it will not have to build a temporary retaining wall at the site.
TISD Superintendent Dr. Randy Reid gave credit to Tim Loper, director of facilities services for TISD, Clarkston Principal Kathryn Letsinger as well as Monte Robinett, the district's construction manager, for the effort.
Loper said that in order to leave the school's gym in place, they would have needed a temporary retaining wall and then later, once a permanent retaining wall was in place, to remove the temporary wall and the gym.
He said that they wouldn't have been able to build the front entrance to the gym or the main entrance to the building or the connecting sidewalk and canopies to both entrances until that gym came down and the temporary wall was gone.
"Monte Robinett and I were looking at the tail end of the project on how we were going to do this and get them open by August 2010," Loper said.
"We had to come up with a way somehow to not have to build that wall temporarily. To do that, we were going to have to remove the gymnasium."
The school's principal was able to help develop a plan for creating an area in the school for physical education to take place with some remodeling and additional portable buildings.
Classrooms were moved and rearranged and the teacher's lounge moved to the stage to make it all happen.
The gym was demolished, remodeling done and portables added during spring break, Loper said.
He said the school could have still opened on time without this, but, "It would have been real close and right down to the wire. It could have possibly opened but it wouldn't be as conducive to getting people in and out of the building."
Clarkston is one of five new schools TISD is building as part of the Phase 2, $124.9 million bond program that voters approved in November.
Reid said the money saved will go back into the bank for the district to use for these projects.
"You always know you're going to have over run here and there, so it's nice when you can have savings in some areas," he said.
"You hope these things will balance each other out. We feel pretty confident that we will. I would love it if we finished these projects and are able to have a pool of money left over to get started on the next phase like we were with this one."
The Phase 2 bond program replaces Clarkston, Griffin, Jones, Orr and Woods elementary schools, as well as the St. Louis School-Wayne D. Boshears Center for Exceptional Programs.
Jones Elementary and the Boshears school, a school for special needs students, will be constructed as one facility.
The district hopes to open all of the schools in August 2010.
The board will consider other construction issues at Thursday's meeting, including approving the Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) for the civil/site utility packages for the Jones-Boshears school.
To speed construction, the civil/site utility packages of the new school were separated from the building GMP.
Denson Construction Company's GMP for the civil/site utility packages is $1,692,588.
"This will enable us to go ahead and start doing that groundwork as soon as we accept this bid," Reid said.
By the April board meeting, the board will have the rest of the GMP available, he said.
Trustees will also consider reroofing the old Peete Elementary, which TISD is now using as a professional development center.
A new roof at the old Peete has been on the list for the preventative maintenance program for several years, but officials waited until they decided how to use the former school building.
The administration is recommending the board approve the bid of Hefner Roofing for $869,500.
Funding in the amount of $921,670, including architectural fees for the 2009 roofing project, will be provided through savings from the 2004 bond program. In addition to roof replacement, a storm sewer for the campus will also be replaced.
The current roof on the old Peete was put on in 1985, Loper said. The school district has 20-year, no-dollar-limit warranties on its roofs, Loper said.
BOARD ELECTION
Also Thursday the board will consider approving the certification of unopposed candidates for the May 9 school board general and special elections, cancelling those elections and certifying the election of the unopposed candidates.
Single Member District 7 Incumbent Ron Vickery is unopposed for his seat and so is Single Member District 5 Incumbent Brad Spradlin.
Eleno Licea, who was appointed to fill the seat for single member district 1 by the board in January, was the only one to file for the district 1 position on the board.
The administration is recommending that the board approve the order to cancel the election and certify the election of: Licea as trustee for district 1 to fill the unexpired term until May 2010; and Spradlin as trustee for district 5 and Vickery for district 7 for terms of three years, expiring in May 2012.
OTHER ITEMS
Other items on the board agenda include consideration of approval of: 2008-09 amended budget; budget timeline; Robert E. Lee High School Gymnasium lighting retrofit; and funding for English Language Arts Staff Development and Materials with America's Choice.
The board will also have a first reading of the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) localized policy update and receive a school construction monthly summary, monthly financial summary, a quarterly investment report, a technology update, special education update and scoreboard condition report.
