A committee charged with investigating renovation options for Mount Hebron High School said they can?t improve the school?s building if they don?t have accurate and complete information to guide them.
Previous architectural reports have said the school needs building code upgrades and an overhaul of its heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. In addition, the school must provide ramps and other hardware to comply with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
Committee member Steve Lucchesi at this week?s committee meeting said the Gilbert Architects report of the school that the committee is using contains inaccuracies.
For example, the purposes of 28 of the 64 classrooms are not properly identified in the 2007 report, and at least five rooms now used for storage or staff planning are assigned as classrooms, Lucchesi said in written testimony for the Howard County school board. Committee members planned to identify four areas of the building most in need of renovation, but they did not have enough information to move forward.
“Although complete and full information is lacking in this process, we have enough information to know that improvement in only four areas will leave many deficient areas unaddressed with no plan to revisit or remediate such areas in the future,” Cindy Ardinger, a parent representative for the committee, said in a short speech at the meeting.
Committee member Tony Culler, president of the Mount Hebron High School PTA, said he wants price tags affixed to various options for fixing the school. He said he?s worried the final cost would exceed the $50 million the school board hopes to budget for the project.
The committee is being facilitated by Ken Roey, the school system?s executive director of facilities planning and management. He could not be reached for comment. The committee consists of parents, teachers, a student representative and various school officials. Its proposed renovation plan will be presented to the school board, but no deadline has been set.
Renovations could begin July 1 with sufficient funding, school officials said.
AT A GLANCE
Strategy for planning the Mount Hebron High School renovation project:
» Inventory the building and accurately tabulate what exists.
» Compare it withstandards.
» Identify deficiencies.
» Develop solution(s) to remedy the deficiencies.
» Price out the solution.
» Compare the cost with the available budget.
» Determine what elements to defer to meet the budget.
This approach was suggested by committee member Steve Lucchesi, who is also a member of Help Mount Hebron, a community group fighting for renovations at the high school.
