Alton Central roof repair work will be completed in time for new school year

In separate actions last night, the School Board voted to approve spending more than $135,000 to continue repairs work begun on the Alton Central School (ACS), to increase school lunch prices about 13-percent this fall, and to move forward with a bid process to purchase heating oil and propane fuel for the coming winter.

At the board’s meeting in the ACS music room, the members gave unanimous approval to a request from Superintendent Kathy Holt to expend $135,005.04 to pay for septic designs and construction, costs related to moving materials around the school wing where ceiling work is being completed, and adding new lights to a portion of the wing. The expenditures are part of the original $175,000 in surplus funds the board approved for the renovation several weeks ago.

Holt said the project is moving ahead smoothly and that LaPlante Builders of Concord, the company doing the roof project, has indicated it will be done in time for students to return to class in six weeks or so.

“I’ve been told that the work will be ‘substantially complete’ and at this point we’ve been assured by the builders that we should be able to be back in the building by August 21,” she said. “Teachers would be returning the following day and the students would return on September 2.”

Not long afterwards, the board discussed a proposal submitted by Business Administrator Kathy O’Blenes that student lunches costs be increased. Elementary school students’ costs will rise from $1.75 per meal to $3, while the cost lunch for seventh and eighth graders will rise from $2 to $2.25.

“We should increase it but we should also be prepared to have more free or reduced lunches because of the economy,” said member Maureen Smith.

The administrator indicated school officials are taking that proposal into consideration for the new school year.

Regarding the fuel bidding process, the board and Holt discussed the idea of entering into a “buying pact” with other municipalities — including the town, and school districts in Barnstead, Gilmanton and Pittsfield — with the hope of getting a cheaper price by offering to buy a greater amount of fuel.

With predictions of higher fuel prices in the coming months, the purchase of oil has become a topic of intense interest in local school districts.

But Holt said she was disappointed she wasn’t able to find another municipality the Alton district could partner with — not even Prospect Mountain High School, which Alton shares with Barnstead.

The board members said they would discuss the issue with the PMHS it shares with Barnstead’s school board at the two-districts’ meeting in the high school media center tonight at 6:30 p.m.

Regarding the repair work, Holt told the board that “most of the ceiling” in the troubled wing has been taken down in recent weeks and “more failures” of the foundational beams were discovered. “We have numerous complete failures as you saw (when the problem was first discovered after a March snowstorm) in room number two,” she said. Those beams are being shored up with “double siding” supports, making them much more stable, she explained.

“I’m glad that we’ve done this (repair) process,” because snow this winter would likely have caused more severe problems, she added. “And I’m very happy we decided to go with 75-pounds-per-inch snow load… We’re not going to have to worry. For the next umpteen years… we’ll be all set.”

In addition, Holt was able to share good news about two septic problems that were discovered in the ACS building in this spring. One, on a side of the building, was “cleared out with a jet” stream of water and Buildings & Maintenance Director Karl Ingolsby said the area should be fine as long as it receives a yearly cleaning. “This is very good news,” Holt told the board.

However the other septic problem in the front of the structure was more complicated. The superintendent said she’d spoken to Varney Engineering, a local company, about coming up with a septic design that would solve its problem. Still, she was able to assure the board that the work “should be done before school opens.”

However the board’s hopes that the renovation plan could include improved lighting for all the rooms in the wing seemed dim, the superintendent said. She said technical problems have made putting in the better lighting more expensive in some rooms so she had asked Principal Bonnie Kuras to check out each room and imagine “the darkest day in the darkest corner” to decide which rooms should get the improved lighting.

“I’m not comfortable in saying we’re going to do all of the lights because we don’t have all the money,” Holt said. “I’m not willing to spend taxpayers money we don’t have.”