Clarksburg School Eyeing ADA Improvements This Summer
CLARKSBURG, Mass. — School officials are hoping to take the next stop in renovations to the 60-year-old school with a refit of the bathrooms.
Some upgrades had been done but there have been issues with obsolete parts and making them compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
"There's multiple bathroom issues. Every bathroom and the, obviously, we talked about the front entryway with the dangerous concrete," said Superintendent John Franzoni at last week's School Committee meeting. "There's some other things about the exterior, the brick and mortar, ... we look at the garage this summer because we're concerned about some of the access to the outdoors in that area, along with paving issues and the grease trap in the kitchen."
The town was able to get an ADA grant through the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission and has some funds put away in stabilization that could be used toward the project.
Town Administrator Ronald Boucher and Thomas Bona, who's taken on the oversight of several construction projects at the school, agreed to get some estimates on the bathroom work and the cement entry during school vacation next week.
"My goal was, if we could start that work right after school ends in June, we could front load the grant money there so we could use that first because we got to probably do an extensive abatement, I can pretty much guarantee you on whatever ones we decide to do," Franzoni said.
He anticipates a "pretty extensive renvation," and thought it important to get some numbers to see whether it was worth pursuing as it could take up a chunk of the stabilization account. It might be better to do the entryway first if it's a more reasonable project, he said.
Bona thought the entryway could be made a lot nicer at not much expense.
The entrance is a covered cement pad. Bona said the ceiling was opened up during the summer's roofing project and that the structure was solid. The cement pad is heaving and will be need to removed and replaced. He also thought a wall of some kind should enclose part of the entry as a barrier.
With Select Board Chair Daniel Haskins, they agreed to reach out to some contractors to walk through the bathrooms and entry next week to get a rough estimate of the costs.
Franzoni said he'd like to get the bids out this spring so construction can be done as soon as school gets out in June. The summer program will shift to Gabriel Abbot Memorial School in Florida after five years in Clarksburg. The program will be smaller because of reduced funding and its coordinator, Jordan Rennell, is now the school union's business administrator.
"Given that it was such an extensive program, we haven't been able to do a full cleaning here either," he said. "This building could use a little attention over this summer in particular."
In other business, the School Committee evinced its interest in a regionalization study of the five-town school union. The union of elementary school is already involved in a study to regionalize the three North Berkshire high schools (McCann Technical is already regionalized).
"We've never had much success with that, because two of our member districts have not been agreeable to it," aid Franzoni. "But we can bring up again to see if there is an appetite to explore that as well."
Rowe recently declined further study in joining the Mohawk Trail Regional School District. The other towns are Florida, Savoy and Monroe.
School Committee member Mary Giron said the smaller schools need to consider the long term as Clarksburg right now covers half the school union budget.
"Even if they think they're OK, and they're in a great financial situation, and the others are not, and if something happens to us because we're not, then they won't be able to survive," she said. "And they're not looking that far down the road. They're just looking at where they are. ...
"Nobody wants to lose their school. I get that, but maybe there's ways we can do things, I don't know, but I really think it needs to be explored."
The school union member are planning to vote on a proposal by Clarksburg to change, at least for this year, the assessment percentage but that has been delayed because of heating issues Monday in Florida, where the committee was to meet.
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