Springs Expansion Begins to Take Shape
Kevin Walsh of B.B.S Architects and Engineering presented revised plans for a proposed Springs School expansion project at a meeting on Monday with the school’s capital planning committee, which includes school board members and administrators. A few members of the public were also present.
Two plans, with varying elements, were the focus, each reflecting detailed feedback the school received during a meeting on Dec. 8. Both plans featured the addition of a second gym, new classrooms and communal spaces, as well as reconfiguration of existing rooms. The goal, according to Mr. Walsh, was “to take everything we know and maximize the space but still be efficient and cost-effective. We wanted to leave as much as possible.”
Barbara Dayton, the school board president, said the plans are “a work in progress.”
They were indeed that, if not a moving around of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Mr. Walsh used markers and the committee’s comments to jigger rooms and spaces on the drawing board.
Proposed features of the new plan included a larger, combined space for art and music at one end of the school and a new gym with direct outdoor access. The current library would be expanded to incorporate a media center. A copy room would be added. The nurses room would be relocated and upgraded, and the English-as-a-new-language classroom would be enlarged in keeping with projections of increased enrollment. A Spanish classroom would be added, as well as common rooms for PTA events and small-group instruction. An inner courtyard would be designed as a play space for younger children.
As new spaces were added and old classrooms swallowed up by expansions, Mr. Walsh drew boxes off to one side of the floor plan, to represent classrooms lost by the changes to others. This pile of boxes, or classrooms that would need to be replaced, became the extension to the current footprint of the school.
John Finello, the school superintendent, praised the plans for compartmentalizing the school by separating elementary and middle schoolers.
Timothy Frazier, the school board vice president, added that the proposed layout would keep the “noisy part of the school” (music and gym) on one side of the building and instructional rooms on the other. He also said that “hallway crowding, which is a real issue, will be improved.”
Mr. Finello called the addition of a second gym “not an option but a mandate. There are some periods where we have four classes in there at once, which means over 100 children at the same time. It is simply not an adequate space.”
While no decisions were made on Monday, the committee agreed to meet again with the architectural firm on Feb. 27 at 11 a.m. to review developments based on this week’s meeting. Following the February meeting and a thorough cost analysis, a date will be set to unveil more concrete plans to the community.