BEACON FALLS — The plan is to have air conditioning throughout most of Woodland Regional High School by the time the 2018-19 school year starts.
When Woodland was built in the early 2000s, the duct work was constructed to accept air conditioning but air conditioning wasn’t installed in the entire building as part of the HVAC system. Common areas in the school, like the gym, cafeteria and auditorium, have air conditioning. However most of the school doesn’t have air condition, and the temperature in some classrooms can rise to 90 degrees or higher, according to school officials.
In May, the Region 16 Board of Education, which oversees schools in Beacon Falls and Prospect, hired Consulting Engineering Services for $52,000 to design plans to put in air conditioning units, bid out the work and help oversee the project.
The plan is to add air conditioning to at least five of the nine air handling units in the school next year. The five units in mind would cover areas where students are, like classrooms.
“We think our priorities should be where kids are learning,” Superintendent of Schools Michael Yamin said.
The project will go out to bid in November. The base bid will include the five units officials want to get done first, and the other four units will be bid out as alternates. All nine units are going out to bid to see if it would be cheaper in the long run to do the work all at once, Yamin said.
The board has about $475,000 set aside in its non-recurring capital account, which is used to pay for one-time expenses, for the project. Yamin estimated that it will cost about $80,000 per unit. The exact cost won’t be known until the bids are returned.
The bids will be awarded in January, according to a timeline presented at last week’s board meeting. The work is scheduled to start when school gets out in June 2018 and be completed by Aug. 31, 2018.
