School projects nearly done
Two East Baton Rouge Parish schools will grow bigger by the time children return from winter break.
Southeast Middle and Villa del Rey Elementary schools are getting more classrooms, eight and six respectively, and both projects are almost complete. Those additions are set to open when students return for the spring semester on Jan. 8. Each cost about $1.7 million.
Construction is just beginning on a $1.6 million six-classroom expansion at Ryan Elementary. Completion is scheduled for June, in time for the start of the 2012-13 school year in August.
The most construction activity will continue to occur at the $58.2 million renovation and expansion of Baton Rouge Magnet High School.
“They average 200-plus workers on that site every day. That’s a lot of activity at one time,” said Earl Kern, program manager for CSRS/Garrard Program Management.
CSRS/Garrard is the joint partnership that has managed most school construction for the school system since 1998, when voters first approved a 1-cent sales tax, much of it earmarked for school construction,
Kern said recent rain has slowed things down.
“We’re in a wet month,” Kern said. “Normally, this time of December, you can count on a wet, soggy construction site.”
Construction at Baton Rouge Magnet High began in summer 2010; the students are holding school at the former Lee High, but are scheduled to return in August.
“The brick restoration on the existing building is complete now. You can really tell the difference when you drive on Government Street how much brighter it is,” Kern told the School Board on Dec. 15. “All the terra cotta has been repainted, and every brick mortar joint has been reworked.”
Board member Jill Dyason asked Kern if the school will reopen on time, citing concerns she’s heard from parents.
“Every schedule we receive from the contractor, and we receive a new one each week, shows that they are complete and ready to be open by August,” Kern replied.
The three under-construction classroom additions at Southeast Middle, and at Ryan and Villa del Rey elementaries are among 14 that CSRS has overseen in the past year.
The money came from $19 million worth of no-interest federal construction bonds through a program called Qualified School Construction Bond, or QSCB. The bond program was expanded as part of the 2009 federal stimulus act. The school system has sold two rounds of QSCB bonds. The money from both rounds has to be spent by late 2012.
CSRS handled the second round of QSCB bonds.
CSRS and the architects hired were able to save enough money during design to expand the number of classroom additions planned from nine to 14.
Eleven additions opened in August, include late-added ones at Cedarcrest-Southmoor Elementary and Woodlawn Middle schools. The three additions under construction now were added after those.
The six new classrooms at Ryan Elementary are part of a much larger set of changes the School Board recently approved.
They will allow for the conversion of Scotlandville Elementary to a middle school in hopes of easing overcrowding at other middle schools.
Besides Ryan, the former Banks and Delmont elementary schools are undergoing renovations this summer. Sharon Hills Elementary is set to have a four-classroom wing added this spring and renovations over the summer.