$34 million school plan is favored

The Red Oak School Board last week held its first work session to discuss results of the town hall facility meetings.
On Nov. 10, the final meeting with public feedback took place at the Wilson Performing Arts Center. Now it’s up to the board to make its final decisions at the upcoming meeting on Dec. 12. Board President Paul Griffen said he had several takeaways from the most recent meeting.
“It doesn’t sound like anyone is in favor of the first option, which does the least when it comes to renovations. It sounds like everyone is most in favor of the third option, for $34 million, or something like that a little modified. We also need to consider an all-day daycare; there has been feedback about that. Something else to consider is some sort of after-school programs. We also need to have a conversation on the options for a practice or competition gym,” Griffen said.
Board member Bret Blackman said he was also interested to determine the district’s finances, and see a more exact figure on how much the project was really going to cost, versus the estimated $34 million price tag for the project. He also wanted to make sure that if the district moved forward with the plan, it wasn’t going to leave the district financially destitute.
“We’ll max out our bonding capacity, I understand that. But it doesn’t mean we’re burning our own firewood to get our boilers to work, for example. We have other dollars that we’re not going to be spending as part of the project. We don’t want people to be confused about the money we’re still going to have available,” Blackman said.
Board secretary Shirley Maxwell said there were options built into the scenarios that covered the district which would go towards the cost of new computers, or other necessities for the district, moving forward,” Maxwell stated.
Board member Kathy Walker posed the question which she thought would be key among the voters, which was, how much less renovation could be done to the high school building to allow for a better gym and wresting area. Alley Poyner Macchietto architect Daric O’Neal said those discussions were already underway.
“We have started the exercise of drilling down to the bare minimum of renovations to the existing high school building. For us, that means renovating ceilings, and everything above. Those are the must do portions of the project. You can come back later and put carpet throughout the facility, or other things like that. Once we get into the ceiling, that’s when you want to take care of the heating and cooling piping, life safety, fire sprinklers, and lighting,” O’Neal said.
O’Neal added they were going to iron out more concrete numbers on the costs of the various renovations so the board had more of an idea of what they were getting for their money as they approach their Dec. 12 decision date.
O’Neal said they could crunch the numbers on moving forward with the remodel, including an updated gym, and reduced remodeling to the high school, but there would be sacrifices.
“It’s a decision of having a full, substantial renovation of the high school, with new paint, new carpet, energy efficiency, which is where we were at with the $34 million option, or cutting things from that to allow for the gym. In that scenario, the ceilings and up have to be taken care of, but you may have the old tile floors, and we probably won’t do any painting. But there are other issues that we may uncover when we start the remodel that could end up costing the district, so it will be difficult to do a full line-item scenario for the board,” O’Neal said.
Board Member Bryce Johnson said they might be able to save the money earmarked for demolition costs if the board could find a re-purpose for the vacated buildings.
Option 3, with the existing plans, would allow for a substantial upgrade to the existing gym, with a new practice gym. The money for the projects, O’Neal said, could flow back and forth depending on the district’s plans.
Blackman said his hope was to see a scenario of taking the current high school gym and making it a practice and competition facility for the junior and high school levels, and see what they had as a focal point for a high school varsity sports athletic gym.
“I think there’s options for something like that. I don’t know what’s realistic. Something in reasonable size to what we have. Two full courts from side to side, and build capacity seating around it,” Blackman said.
O’Neal said there were a variety of options that they could consider for that criteria, and what was included in the gym would decide the pricing.
Blackman said if Derek crunched the numbers and the project was more expensive than they could reasonably do, they would at least have the information for future reference if they wanted to seek out other options to fund the project down the line.
The board scheduled another work session after their regular board meeting Nov. 28 for further discussion of facilities plans.