School Buildings Get Summer Repairs

New library floors at Sound School, a new playground at Lincoln-Bassett, and a new hot water heater at FAME School are among several facilities projects that New Haven Public Schools completed this summer. 

The Board of Education received those updates and more thanks to a presentation by ABM Executive Director of Facilities Astor Pagan on Monday. 

The report updated the school board and the public on the facilities operations work the district has been conducting throughout the summer. Pagan also gave estimated completion dates for several projects that are ongoing. 

Those projects include hot water heater replacements, Yondr pouch box installations, fire alarm control panel and HVAC repairs, flooring replacements, solar canopy installations, pool repairs, and playground upgrades. Click here for the full facilities presentation. 

“Facilities [Department] is running on all cylinders right now,” Pagan said on Monday.

So far, hot water heaters have been replaced at East Rock, Davis, and FAME (Family Academy of Multilingual Exploration). Work is pending for Fair Haven School’s replacement. 

Library flooring repairs have been completed at Sound and Ross Woodward as of Monday, and Troup is expected to have its library floor repairs complete by Aug. 19, Pagan said. 

As of Monday, the district hasn’t released plans for its rollout of Yondr phone pouches for high schoolers after it implemented use of the phone storage cases for all middle schools in the spring. 

So far, Pagan reported, the wall-mounted magnetic devices used to unlock the Yondr pouches have been installed at Hillhouse, Career, Metropolitan Business Academy, Co-op, and High School in the Community. Additional installations are underway at ESUMS (Engineering and Science University Magnet School), Sound, and Wilbur Cross, and are estimated to be completed by Aug. 15.

For the district’s solar canopy projects, completion is expected by Aug. 22 for installations at Hill Central and Beecher. 

The district currently has pools open at Hillhouse and John Martinez. Career’s pool fixes are estimated to be completed and the pool open in September. Conte’s pool repairs are pending funding for filter equipment replacements, but the pool is expected to be completed this upcoming school year. 

For HVAC repairs, Pagan said Tucker Mechanical technicians are onsite daily to address outstanding issues at Adult Ed, Lincoln Bassett, Beecher, Betsy Ross, Celentano, Wilbur Cross, John Daniels, Dr. Mayo, King Robinson, Ross Woodward, and Truman, which all have inadequate or no air conditioning currently. 

Temporary chillers have been installed at John C. Daniels and Betsy Ross.

In response to Pagan’s final update that school grass cutting is expected to be completed by Aug. 27, Board of Education member Andrea Downer asked that Pagan be briefed on the board’s vote earlier in the meeting to table two contracts for landscaping. The first cost $95,000 for Cheapscapes LLC to conduct on-call landscaping services and the second cost $110,000 for Green Valley Landscaping LLC to also provide on-call landscaping. 

Downer urged Pagan and district leadership to not hire vendor Cheapscapes for the job, as it has in the past. Pagan agreed with Downer that Cheapscapes had not been a good contractor for NHPS.

She also asked if the district is on budget for summer cleaning and prep to avoid large change orders mid-year. Pagan responded, ​“To my understanding, yes.” 

Downer concluded by asking about what repairs were happening for Cross’ pool, to which Pagan said the district is first prioritizing acquiring funding to repair the school’s roofing.