The Kanawha County school board Wednesday unanimously approved amending its long-range building plan in order to request state School Building Authority money to build an auditorium for Horace Mann Middle School.
The board also unanimously selected Charleston-based firm Bastian & Harris, Architects to perform architectural/engineering services for additions and renovations to Andrews Heights Elementary School - a project that the SBA has already decided to fund.
Kanawha County will ask for SBA funds for Horace Mann in the "major improvement project" competitive grants cycle. Compared to the SBA's annual "needs" grant cycle, the major improvement project awards are generally much smaller. The SBA - which distributes state general revenue, bond proceeds and lottery money for school construction and renovation projects around West Virginia - gives no more than $1 million to counties for major improvement projects.
Charles Wilson, the Kanawha school system's executive director of facilities planning, said Kanawha will request the maximum $1 million, and will supplement it with about $330,000 in local funding, in order to build a roughly 4,500-square-foot auditorium. He said Horace Mann, in Kanawha City, has no auditorium for events like plays and has been using its gym.
He said there may still be money to fix window issues at the school.
In December 2014, when the SBA's board last chose which major improvement project requests to fund, the SBA rejected Kanawha's request for $400,000 to replace windows at the school.
At the time, Wilson said the roughly 50 windows in question, which lack the air buffer of double pane windows, date back to the 1930s and have problems with energy efficiency and ice forming on the inside of the building. He said the newer windows, which are perhaps from the 1960s, were also in bad shape, but the school system was trying to keep the proposal's cost down.
SBA staff said the school needed a total window and door replacement and suggested Kanawha increase the scope of the proposal and resubmit it for the next funding cycle. It also noted that, though Kanawha offered to pay for a quarter of the project's total $533,000 cost, that amount would equal less than 1 percent of the $21 million in unrestricted funds the county had left over from the prior fiscal year. Kanawha schools Superintendent Ron Duerring disputed whether that money was really "unrestricted," noting much had to go toward mandated textbook replacements and other costs.
Wilson said that this time around, an SBA representative said the auditorium idea would have a better shot of being funded than the window project.
"Their feelings were that window replacement is more of a maintenance-type activity and they're looking for larger-scale projects and more construction-type projects," Wilson said.
SBA staff were unavailable for comment Wednesday.
As for Andrews Heights, the SBA board voted last month to provide about $1.8 million to that project. Coupled with the $1.2 million in local money the Kanawha school system is providing, the project will remove the four mold-infested trailer classrooms at the Tornado school and add a large innovative room with different zones for activities like reading and science experiments in which four teachers will jointly instruct fourth and fifth graders.
It will also provide a larger kitchen area, a room for art and music, a teacher work room, a speech room and a conference room, and other renovations. Wilson said the renovations will hopefully be completed by the start of the 2017-18 school year. He said Bastian & Harris would receive about $200,000 for its work.
Also Wednesday, Kanawha school board members unanimously approved hiring Maggie Holley as principal of Nitro Elementary School, effective in July. Holley is principal of Roane County's Reedy Elementary, which is closing due to consolidation at the end of this school year.
Board members also approved the transfer, effective in July, of Grandview Elementary Assistant Principal Lynn M. Davis to the Holz Elementary principal position, where Duerring said Karen Simon is retiring. They also approved the transfer, effective next month, of Cedar Grove Elementary Principal Leah B. Earnest to the Kenna Elementary principal position. Current Kenna Principal Terry Sauvageot is moving to the countywide community education director position, from which Clara Jett has retired.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.