“It’s very hard to predict ….
“It’s very hard to predict if the student population will go up or down. In our case, on any given year we could add 3035 students, or lose 10.”
The district has raised roughly $1 million for that project, but administrators were caught off guard when the district’s pool sprung a leak late last year. The pool was constructed nearly 50 years ago, and after bringing in experts to look at it, the cost to repair was estimated at $700,000.
“This is something that means a lot to our community . . . it’s important,” Baker said about the pool.
Mary Nikolay could not attend the VIP meeting, but in a hand-written note, she pledged $100,000 to the pool repair project. In the coming weeks, the district is hoping to receive more donations to offset costs for the two projects.
Baker said she had received a letter from Nikolay, which she read aloud at last week’s event: “I am hopeful that our community can raise the funds to repair and improve our school’s swimming pool. I remember around 50 years ago when the funds for the original pool fell in our laps. . .since then, generations of our children have learned to swim and spent many happy hours in play. Surely, we as a community can come together to provide this to our children and many adult swimmers.”
Moving forward
The board of education convened for a special meeting on Tuesday morning, in which they reaffirmed their goal to move forward with the pool project.
Mason Rachu, the district’s maintenance supervisor, said they found additional asbestos in the facility, which will also need to be removed, and the cost of this removal will be $50,000 since it will mean that much more work during demolition.
Rachu said the bigger issue is the pool deck.
“Our pool deck, as far as pitch (slope) for the drains does not meet ADA compliance. . which means we have to rip up all the tile and redo the pool deck,” he said.
The cost to replace the tile would be an additional $130,000, but Rachu said they could go with a brushed concrete pool deck, and can even stain the concrete during the mixing process to color the brushed concrete.
Other changes to the pool will be the removal of the diving board, which does not meet current codes because the pool wall is too shallow on that end.
Rachu displayed a model of the finished pool, and he pointed out a rectangle that runs around the pool. That rectangle, he said, would be a new trench gutter, which is more efficient than having a bunch of little drains, which is what the pool previously had.
After listening to Rachu’s report, the board approved a plan to go with the stainless steel gutter and brushed concrete.
