School board OKs technology, additional asbestos removal funds; tables action on tennis courts

Warren County School Board members on July 3 unanimously approved funds to provide students with new Chromebook laptops for the upcoming school year and for removing more asbestos if it’s found at A.S. Rhodes Elementary School.

At the same time, board members decided to wait on designating funds to fix the tennis courts at Skyline and Warren County high schools.

The big-ticket item approved by school board members totals $181,007 to continue providing Chromebooks for all middle and high school students and to make additional Chromebooks for elementary school classrooms available during the 2019-2020 school year.

“We are also purchasing parts for current and future Chromebook repairs,” Timothy Grant, director of technology for Warren County Public Schools (WCPS), told school board members last week.
“Included in these purchases are the Chromebooks, parts, and software licensing.”

Grant said that the purchases will be funded through the Virginia Public School Authority Technology Grant, as well as funds included in the district’s technology budget.

Grant also noted that WCPS will use Lenovo Chromebooks for the upcoming school year rather than the current Dell models.

“We did have a lot of problems this past year with Dell Chromebooks,” he explained. “The batteries were going bad and there wasn’t anything that anybody was doing to cause those problems.”

The WCPS technology department already has tried out the Lenovo brands, added Grant, who said they’re very durable. The Lenovo models also are being used in schools in the nearby counties of Frederick and Rockingham, Va., he said.

“We’re going to try them out this year and see how it goes,” said Grant.

Warren County School Board members on July 3 also approved another $90,000 in school construction funds for asbestos abatement at A.S. Rhodes Elementary School — if it’s needed.

Board members during their May 1 meeting approved a contract with APEX Companies, LLC to abate the asbestos at A. S. Rhodes Elementary School for a total cost of $59,365. The work includes the abatement of asbestos-containing materials in the crawl space of the building and in various interior spaces of the school.

However, APEX now has submitted a revised proposal, said Greg Livesay, WCPS director of maintenance, because as staff prepared for the abatement, they pulled carpet in nine more classrooms to visually inspect what was underneath.

They discovered there was 9″ x 9″ vinyl tile under the carpet that may contain asbestos, Livesay said.

“We will need to test and have a lab analysis done,” said Livesay. “In some rooms, it’s guaranteed, I can tell you right now because we can see the black mastic under the carpet.”

The revised cost estimate could increase the district’s costs by $90,000 if the laboratory results from the sampling test positive and all nine classrooms require abatement, he said.

“We wanted to make you aware of that change and ask for your approval for the additional funding up to $90,000,” Livesay said, adding that the total cost would increase to almost $150,000.

Livesay acknowledged that “it’s a huge cost” and pointed out that the original 2010 Asbestos Management Plan developed by Winchester Environmental Consultants Inc. did not identify the material underneath the carpet in these classrooms as suspected asbestos-containing materials nor was any sampling conducted.

The initial scope of the asbestos abatement would take about 10 work days, Livesay said, but another week will get tacked on to that following the lab results on the nine classrooms.

“I don’t like the increased cost, but now’s the perfect time; it’s summer and no kids are in the building,” said WCPS Superintendent Greg Drescher during the board meeting.

The asbestos also needs to be abated before a planned, multi-million-dollar renovation of A. S. Rhodes Elementary School can get under way. Bids will be taken again for that project in the fall.

In addition to the asbestos removal moving forward, school board members also on July 3 approved a contract award to Vertex Roofing Inc. totaling $43,875 to replace the shingle roof at A.S. Rhodes Elementary School.

Repair work on the tennis courts at Skyline and Warren County high schools, however, didn’t fare as well when school board members tabled action pending the outcome of a geotechnical report that Livesay said would determine what’s causing the continued surface cracking on the courts.

“Both schools have experienced significant cracking throughout a large majority of their tennis courts,” Livesay said. “Skyline High School specifically has over 1,700-square-feet of linear cracking, leaving some of them virtually unsafe for play.”

And when it comes to competition play, Skyline High School is unable to use all the courts, he added.

Livesay requested that school board members approve two contract awards to ATC Corp., one in the amount of $32,975 for repairs to the tennis courts at Skyline High School and the other totaling $25,877 for repairs to the tennis courts at Warren County High School.

The repairs at both high schools would include crack filling for the surface areas, crack repair overlay and color coating of damaged areas to match existing colors, said Livesay, who added that the costs would be on top of the roughly $100,000 the district spent to fix the tennis courts two years ago.

“I know some of you may have concerns about this amount of money being spent on these courts considering what was spent just two years ago,” Livesay said. “And I can’t say that future cracking won’t occur.”

In fact, some of the Warren County School Board members did voice their concerns, specifically chairwoman Catherine Bower and member Arnold Williams Jr.

“In 2017 we spent this money and now we’re having to do it again,” Bower said, shaking her head back and forth. “So, do we need to check something out before we have to spend this money on doing it again or in two years would we have to do it again?”

Action on both items was tabled until the school board’s August 7 meeting to allow more information to be collected.