The Board of Education has reached a preliminary consensus on a $12.7 million building proposal and is looking to get comment from residents.

School officials have been discussing for months what building proposal they can craft in conjunction with a $935,000 grant the district received from the state’s Expanding our Children’s Education and Learning (EXCEL) program.

The board had initially considered doing a project in conjunction with the spring budget vote, but decided to hold off on any building proposition until fall.

It has narrowed it down to a project that would include nearly $5 million for roof repair and other maintenance projects at all the schools. It would also renovate science and technology classrooms and enclose the currently open library at the middle school and renovate the technology rooms at the high school at a cost of $4.5 million. The third component of the project would repair the athletic fields including adding artifi - cial turf, a multi-purpose fi eld with track field event area and 500-seat bleachers.

Board members were more lukewarm to a $16 million option that would have created an addition to the middle school containing a new library.

Superintendent Susan Swartz said all the cost estimates are very preliminary. She said she is looking at organizing some forums in June.
Board member Kurt Ahnert said school officials would have to show that the cost of adding turf may be justified with the use of the fields. “That is going to be the lightning rod issue,” he said.

UPCOMING COURSES
In other business, the board heard from Scotia-Glenville High School Principal Lynda Castronovo about new courses.

Added to the curriculum this year were career writing and media analysis, drama, ninth-grade English honors, E (Electronic) Commerce, introduction to college mathematics, Advanced Placement (AP) statistics, AP world history, sociology, statistics and fundamentals of medicine and diagnosis.

“Each course is designed to challenge the students to prepare them for the kind of work they will receive at the college level,” she said.

Castronovo said the E-commerce course teaches students about the world of electronic commerce and they help craft a business Web page. In the medicine course, students learn how to use some medical equipment like a stethoscope and blood pressure equipment.

In the 2008-09 school year, the school plans to offer an information technology essentials class and introductory Italian. The district is also in negotiations to have students take a class on the software program Java through a distance learning network with the Schalmont School District.