North Shore Central School District announced the beginning of a capital improvements project for its schools at Thursday’s Board of Education meeting.
While it will be a while before the construction breaks ground, the architects at CSArch have already begun meeting with the district’s Bond Steering Committee, and they laid out a few priorities for the project.
The district’s main priority is safety and security followed by instructional space, general infrastructure and energy performance.
Goals for the project include being tax neutral, bold and impactful, facilitating a healthy and safe environment, efficiency in design and layout, and creating contemporary, collaborative and modern spaces.
The district operates five schools, including North Shore High School in Glen Head.
In a presentation to residents and the board, Tina Mesiti-Céas, CSArch’s executive principal, and Daryl Mastracci, a managing principal of the firm, discussed a timeline for the school district along with examples of designs that meet the district’s priorities and goals.
Mesiti-Céas explained that the architects do not plan on building anything new; they are just looking to reorganize the existing space.
To facilitate safety and security in the schools, designers will make sure they are designing spaces that have secure vestibules and entrances with clear communication to the school’s main office, Mesiti-Céas said.
CSArch showed residents instructional spaces that facilitate student learning whether individually or in groups.
“We want to create the contemporary, collaborative learning spaces that promote the future of learning and how students are learning today,” Mesiti-Céas said.
These spaces typically stray from the “traditional lecture” and incorporate “more active space.”
An energy-saving performance contract is being explored to update current energy systems in the district to make buildings more energy-efficient.
Mastracci explained an energy performance contract as an “alternative funding mechanism to execute energy conservation measures where the energy savings actually pay for the cost of the project.”
The designers will see what they can “package into the energy performance contract to replace and upgrade those systems” so they can focus the capital improvements projects on the “student, learning, and instructional spaces,” he said.
The project is labeled “tax-neutral” due to the district retiring a $800,000 bond this year and reallocating the money assigned for principal interest payments to take out new bonds.
Residents will not see any increase in their tax burden.
The district had the option to not take out a new bond and return the money to the taxpayers, who would see a decrease in their taxes. However, administrators felt it was important to borrow now because these projects need to be addressed and interest rates are rising, Olivia Buatsi, the assistant superintendent of business, said.
Superintendent Peter Giaruzzo explained that in last year’s long-term planning school officials decided to execute a strategy where the district would “take the monies that were in retiring debt and use them to leverage longer-term projects at no additional cost to the taxpayers.”
CSArch expects to conduct a survey in early December to get the opinions of community members on what they think should be in the project.
The architects said they believe a design will be ready by mid-2019 and will be brought to a vote by the fall.
