by Joseph Back

The Stanley-Boyd School Board was updated on school remodel plans at the regular 25 school board, with representatives from CESA 10 on hand to help.

“We’re at that point right now where we’re going to finalize the construction documents,” CESA 10 facilities management advisor Anthony Menard said. “That would be September to October.” CESA 10 associate director of facilities manage- ment Luke Schultz was also

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on hand at the meeting to answer board questions and ouer input.

Among the remodel plan specifics as currently taking shape were a middle school locker room being turned it into a bathroom, along with art and music room changes in the elementary area. A north side remodel to facilitate bus travc and stau parking just ou Fourth Avenue on school property was also touched on, though as an option rather than concrete for the present.

Included in an alternate bid scenario, the prospect of install- ing security doors that would seal ou portions of the school from one another with the pressing a panic button, was also among the options presented to the board.

Approving the remodel plans in principle to allow CESA 10 to go to the architect LHB of Superior for a next step, the S-B School Board decided to hold ou on receiving bids for a year in the hopes of better numbers from contractors, while a certain piece of equipment loomed especially large within the remodel decision making process: the air handler.

With remodel estimated to take a total of six months and the building unusable without the air handler, planning well for its installation and arrival was essential to a successful plan, for which the district currently has over $6 million saved towards the project in Fund 46, its capital improve ment fund.

With a La Crosse-based company among the main manufacturer for said air handlers, things were made harder on the local level by a slight detail: reported shortage and an order backlog on the units, due partly to increased product demand as federal ESSER funds designed to be used for improved air quality during COVID. If ordered this fall there was a projected 10-month wait. The district could do a direct buy as opposed to going through the contractor, but questions of fault in case anything went wrong with the unit and its impact on the school year, loomed large.

“It’s an integral piece of equipment,” school board member Chad Verbeten said of the air handler matter at Stanley- Boyd as it related to interior remodel plans. “And if something goes wrong, I want the school to be able to go back to mechanical and say, ‘it’s your piece of equipment, your ordered it, it's your problem.'" With a move to ov cial drawings being approved, bids on a remodel, are still to come.

Included in an alternate bid scenario are security doors that could close off hallways like this one, thereby controlling movement through the building. Photo by Joseph Back.