Posted 11:22 pm Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Trustees To Consider Price Cap For Jones-Boshears
By MEGAN MIDDLETON
Staff Writer
Tyler ISD trustees will consider approving the Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) for the new Jones-Boshears school at their regular board meeting Thursday.
Staff Writer
Tyler ISD trustees will consider approving the Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) for the new Jones-Boshears school at their regular board meeting Thursday.
The meeting is set for 7 p.m. in the Dr. Jack L. Davidson Conference Center at the Jim Plyler Instructional Complex, 807 W. Glenwood. The closed session meeting begins at 6 p.m.
The new 131,000-square-foot campus will combine Mattie Jones Elementary School and the St. Louis School-Wayne D. Boshears Center for Exceptional Programs facility that serves special needs students.
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 of $1,692,588 was approved by the TISD school board at its last regular meeting.
The item up for approval at Thursday's meeting is the GMP for the rest of the construction process.
"They are finalizing the numbers," TISD Superintendent Dr. Randy Reid said of the GMP Tuesday. "But it looks real good. It looks like we're going to be within budget, so we're excited about that. We'll have an exact number on Thursday night."
Because the district separated the GMPs, work has already begun at the site of the new school, which is along Chandler Highway, or Front Street, near Loop 323, behind the Westwood Shopping Center.
"It's going to be a beautiful site," Reid said. "I didn't realize how well we were going to be able to see the school from the loop. It's going to be a great site, and it's going to give us super visibility for that campus."
The site work should be completed by the end of April, and then work on the foundation for the building will begin, he said.
According to previous information presented to trustees, the left side of the new Jones-Boshears campus will be single-story and contain classrooms for the Boshears students. The right side of the campus is a two-story, 500-student elementary school for the Jones students. The campus also contains shared spaces, such as the cafeteria.
The Jones-Boshears school is one of five new schools TISD is building as part of the November bond election. TISD is also building schools to replace Clarkston, Griffin, Orr and Woods elementary schools.
The district plans to open most of the schools in August 2010.
The opening of the new Griffin Elementary School will likely be delayed because of site acquisition issues, Reid said Tuesday. He also said the school's design may become different than the original plan, depending on the location of the school.
TISD officials met with the Griffin community in February to discuss the school district's plan for the location of Griffin, but were met with resistance to their proposal, which involved swapping land with the city to allow TISD to build the new Griffin Elementary on a portion of Woldert Park, a city park across the street from the school, and rebuild the park on the site of the current Griffin Elementary.
NEW ROAD AT HUBBARD
The school board will also consider approving a bid for more than $576,000 for the construction of a new road at Hubbard Middle School designed to relieve traffic congestion for the school and surrounding neighborhood. The total cost of the project is more than $666,000.
The road will stretch from Copeland Road to Chad Drive. The project will include a bus drop-off area and parking lot.
Reid said the traffic congestion has been a problem for many years at the school that now has about 900 students.
The construction of the road will be a summer project, Reid said. If approved, it is expected to be ready for the start of the 2009-10 school year.
The road will be paid for using additional funds the district has as the result of increased enrollment and a change in the targeted revenue TISD received from the state.
OTHER ITEMS
Also on the agenda for Thursday's meeting is the approval of the purchase of nine new buses -- seven conventional buses and two special needs buses -- for the 2009-10 school year. The total cost is more than $751,000. The buses also will be paid for using additional funds the district has as the result of increased enrollment and a change in the targeted revenue TISD received from the state.
Trustees also will consider approving the purchase of wireless laptop cards for John Tyler and Robert E. Lee high schools for more than $639,000. Funding will come from E-rate funds the district has received.
Also on the agenda Thursday is approval of: 2008-09 amended budget; gifts and donations; date to conduct the official canvass for the May 9 school trustee election and special election; Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) localized policy update 84; striping and seal coating at various campuses; radio system upgrade, painting bids for Hubbard Middle School, Robert E. Lee High School and Administration Building exteriors; pre-demolition asbestos abatement at Clarkston Elementary; installation of electronic marquees at Bell, Ramey and Jack elementary schools and Moore MST Magnet School technology upgrade.
