After being recommended by the New Lebanon School Building Committee, Tai Soo Kim Partners Architects was approved as the the future school’s architects by the Board of Education on Tuesday.
Minutes later, the board discussed plans for the 2016-17 relocation options for students in the current New Lebanon School, specifically fourth and fifth graders. Construction on the new school is not scheduled to begin until the 2017-18 school year.
The proposal to send the 86 students to Western Middle School for the 2016-17 school year was deferred until the next meeting on Thursday, October 8 to allow board members to submit more questions about the plan.
“I think we need to completely re-think this budget in this proposal,” board member Peter von Braun said in concerns to the cost for the future modular classrooms. “I really would not like to go forward to the Board of Estimate and Taxation with a budget that is really, grossly inflated from what it should be.”
von Braun was citing an estimate in the plan calling for $1,284,000 for two years worth of renting modular classrooms at $53,500 per month. He says there are more affordable options than the one given in the proposal and that nothing is certain until a competitive bid is given.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. William McKersie says options will be explored to try and bring cost levels down.
In attendance were more than a dozen parents with students in the current New Lebanon School, pleading their case for modular classrooms at the current school instead of moving fourth and fifth graders to WMS.
“It has been an exhausting process over the last two years to the New Lebanon community. We have gotten together and expressed our voice and opinions regarding our children’s needs,” said New Lebanon School PTA co-president Diego Sanchez. “The Board of Selectman has put New Lebanon in a difficult situation.”
“We encounter once again, a new challenge, which is a poor solution to send fourth and fifth grade kids to Western Middle School next year. It is our belief that this will affect their school experience by being away from their age-appropriate peers and they will be deprived of the opportunity to experience what is expected of them as proper classmates to their school.”
WMS has been used before to house the Glenville fourth and fifth grade during the construction of the Glenville building.
In the second and third year of the three-year plan, it has been recommended that the Board of Education approve construction of modular classrooms built on the Western Middle School campus to house students in Kindergarten through fifth grade for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years.
