Ready for double sessions at Toll Gate High School?
That may be the furthest thing on people’s minds, as in response to declining enrollment, Warwick is on track to closing Veterans High School …
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Ready for double sessions at Toll Gate High School?
That may be the furthest thing on people’s minds, as in response to declining enrollment, Warwick is on track to closing Veterans High School this spring.
But Superintendent Phil Thornton has a plan to move Vets students to Toll Gate – and, if he has to, before the academic year comes to a close.
The critical element is the Vets steam heating, which dates back to construction of the school in 1955. While the school’s two giant boilers that gulp 25 to 30 gallons of heating oil hourly can crank out the heat – they did just that when temperatures plunged to minus 9 degrees on Saturday – the sub-floor network of pipes is coming apart. The circulatory system runs off two dank, dimly lit basement corridors with pipes branching off in each direction to classrooms above.
“What they used wasn’t junk,” says Ray Miller, head heating mechanic. That’s the reason the system has way outlived its practical life. It’s also the reason why it is so difficult to replace or repair. Pipes are encased in asbestos and imbedded in cement flooring. When there’s a leak, and that is happening more and more frequently, trenches have to be cut in the floor, followed by asbestos abatement and removal of a section of piping.
“It took us three days to fix this leak,” Greg Malm, head custodian, said yesterday, pointing to a corner filled with computers. Malm gave a tour of the sub-floor piping network. Patches in the system were easy to pick out. Condensation dripped from water pipes. Abandoned electrical panels hung open, wires exposed, and a system of newer pipes carrying telephone wires ran along the ceiling. When up and running, steam hisses from pipe joints and patches filling the area in mist.
Thornton said yesterday the department has a plan to institute double sessions at Toll Gate if the system can’t be held together. A similar plan is on the shelf for double sessions at Winman Junior High should Vets be forced to close when it opens as a junior high school in the fall.
But Thornton has a better plan – replacing the entire HVAC system, which would give the building heat as well as air conditioning. Projected to cost $3.5 million, the natural gas system would work off of roof units that the superintendent hopes to have in place by this fall when seventh- and eighth-grade students, who would have otherwise attended either Gorton or Aldrich, fill the building. The $3.5 million would be part of a $5 million bond.
To open city and school communication and demonstrate confidence in the plan, Mayor Scott Avedisian, who was joined by City Council President Donna Travis and School Committee Chair Beth Furtado and members Eugene Nadeau and Terri Medeiros, announced Jan. 27 the city would share in the cost of the bonding – about $200,000 – for the first year. In addition, the mayor said council members Steve Colantuono and Camille Vella-Wilkinson favored the plan.
But questions surfaced this week whether the agreement will meet the school committee’s approval at a special meeting scheduled for next Wednesday night. And should the schools approve it, some are questioning if there are five votes on the council when it considers the bonds on March 7.
While in attendance at the Jan. 27 announcement, Nadeau called the city’s offer to share the bond costs “outrageous,” because it has a responsibility to pay the full amount. The $5 million would come from a $25 million general obligation school bond approved by Warwick voters in 2006.
Nadeau’s argument carries weight with Ward 9 Councilman Steve Merolla.
“These bond referendums were always paid by the city,” Merolla said in a telephone interview. “These are our properties. It’s not their debt to begin with.”
Mayor Avedisian commended Thornton for pushing ahead with consolidation and doing “what he thinks is right.”
“He is very visible and vocal and restoring faith in our schools,” said the mayor. But Avedisian has also heard there could be issues with passage of the bond.
“I’m getting some push back. I don’t know if there are the votes to pay for half of it,” he said.
School committee member Jennifer Ahearn called the proposed agreement “a very appropriate gesture in an election year.” She said she has never been a proponent of schools paying principal and interest on general obligation bonds. She feels the schools “are being taken advantage of.”
Neither Ahearn nor Nadeau disclosed how they plan to vote on the proposal.
In a memo to Thornton, school construction coordinator Robert Corrente assessed the situation at Vets.
“The Buildings and Grounds Department management team feels that we are at a critical failure point. If this system is not replaced in the near future, we face total failure and the closing of the school until replacement can be made,” he writes.
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smh
What is it going to take for the voting populous of Warwick to WAKE UP and vote these people out????? It would behoove every taxpayer in this city to show up at the Admin Bldg and settle in for the long haul to stage a protest that this will no longer be tolerated...No wonder enrollment is declining...who in their right mind would want to send their children into the quagmire that is the Warwick Public School System?
Thursday, February 18, 2016 Report this
Justanidiot
The high schoolers are going to go to Toll Gate and Pilgrim next year, why not do it now, save money, and not have to do a rushed job on the heating plant. What's that? It makes sense? Ok, never mind, I forgot who I was talking about.
Friday, February 19, 2016 Report this
richardcorrente
In 2006 Warwick Taxpayers voted to approve a $25,000,000 bond to repair our decaying schools. To this day Mayor Avedisian STILL hasn't released ALL of the funds! PLUS he extorts the monthly interest payments from the School Departments budget.
This continuous abuse of power will come to an immediate end the day I become Mayor.
Matters of education are the responsibility of the School Department and matters of the buildings are the TOTAL responsibility of the "landlord"; in this case the City of Warwick.
No other municipality forces their School Department to pay their City-debts.
After the election, it won't happen in Warwick either.
Please vote for me. I will fix this on day one!
Thank you!
Richard Corrente
Democrat for Mayor
Friday, February 19, 2016 Report this
MyRhody
Forgive me if I appear confused. Why would Tollgate be on double sessions if there already is enough room at Pilgrim to house all the Vets students? If Warwick School Committee is confident of the plan they have put in place, why not send the students there? It would make more sense to ensure the plan works before the other schools are closed to see how the consolidation plan would play out?
Has anyone compared the renovation costs of Warwick Veterans and Pilgrim to the costs of a new school that would house the students without being over crowded or forced to be on double sessions? If Veteran's boiler over hall will cost 3.5 million, what will Warwick School Committee do if Pilgrim's heating system fails again? What else might become a catastrophic problem? Plumbing? What will have to be cut in the upcoming budgets to continue to repair these building that are out of date and in disrepair?
The consolidation plan the current School Committee is working under is ten years old. It is time all stake holders including the Mayor, the City Council Members, the current Superintendent and the School Committee sat down together to figure out what will cost us the least over time and what is in the best interest of our students and the taxpayers not what is the biggest band-aid we can use to keep us going right now.
Saturday, February 20, 2016 Report this
bendover
Leadership Rhode Island style, FIRE, AIM, READY. Maybe the school committee will take a page from the general assembly and put toll booths in the corridors? Has the final number of students leaving Vets who will call Tollgate home as well as Pilgrim been determined, and what are the final allocation numbers of students? Is it true the lions share of Vets students are being sent to Pilgrim? What will the census final number be for both schools? Between the leaky roof and heating system at Pilgrim, as someone else pointed out, what happens if Pilgrim's aged system and roof fail? Who will get the tollbooth contract for the corridors? LEADERSHIP....What?
Saturday, February 20, 2016 Report this