Upgraded Middle School Infrastructure Underway

Upper Moreland School District is buying an additional 20 years of life at its 40-year-old middle school, according to the district’s business manager.

The roughly $5 million project entails upgrading the infrastructure at the school. The school board last month approved the issuance of a $5 million bond for middle school improvements. 

The various renovations planned at the middle school are already figured into the district’s $56.9 million 2013-2014 budget, District Business Manager Michael Braun told Patch.

The bulk of the bond ($3.6 million) will cover an energy project, according to a construction project spreadsheet provided by Braun. Redoing the middle school’s electrical system and adding the ability to adjust temperatures remotely, for instance, is expected to save the district $107,000 a year in energy costs, Braun said.

Electrical work is expected to finish by summer 2014.

The school board, during Tuesday’s meeting, awarded a $102,445 bid to Sargent Enterprises for an asbestos abatement project, which will begin at the middle school this summer. The first phase, which is expected to wrap up before the next school year, includes the replacement of ventilators and removal of elbows to HVAC units. Elbows will be replaced with fiberglass, he said.

“It’s not dangerous as long as the asbestos is contained and not seen,” Braun said. “We decided not to do the floors this year.”

The asbestos is mainly in classrooms, Braun said. Next year’s project will include the removal of tile, he said.

A project to allow the middle school to go wireless will need to wait because one bid received for the work was “so low” and missed components, while the other was “too high,” according to Braun. Part of that project, which Braun said would be rebid in October, includes the addition of security cameras throughout the middle school.

In all, the improvements are expected to expand the middle school’s life by another 20 years, Braun said. The primary focus is on infrastructure upgrades at the middle school, because that is “the only school we really haven’t done a lot of work on,” Braun said.