The Board of Education Monday night put off recommending an additional $2.5 million requested by the School Building Committee for the $74 million renovation and expansion of Staples High School.
The board acted after receiving a memo from project director Susan Chipouras saying it would cost $900,000 to make 746 windows throughout the school able to open and close as was specified in the original educational specifications for the project.
The board was told that the Staples Subcommittee had decided to eliminate operable windows as part of its “value engineering” that reduced the cost of the project by $500,000.
Earlier, committee officials had told the board that making all windows operable was not necessary because of the modern air-handling technology installed in the school.
“It seems to methat if there were 746 windows that were not going to open, that is something that the Board of Ed should have been consulted on,” said member Lewis Brey. “It’s done. That didn’t happen.”
He said the board now must decide whether it wants to make any more changes in the windows of the building before moving ahead with recommending approval of additional funds by the town’s funding bodies.
Brey expressed displeasure that neither Chipouras nor Dan Kail, chair of the Staples Subcommittee, was present for Monday night’s meeting.
“In the years I have served on various boards and on the RTM, I have never had such a maddening experience getting information from people,” he said. “And what is shocking to me given all that these people have done for this project and for the community is why they are not here.”
Subcommittee member Allen Bomes, who presented on behalf of the subcommittee, said he was not sure why the two were not there.
Board member Linda Merk-Gould said she understood that there were already problems with the ventilation system in the new Staples wing.
“We have a beautiful building. We are all in agreement on that,” she said. “But we also have the reality of the situation where the ventilation system is not operating 100 percent. In fact, I understand that for the science rooms, it was turned off until it can operate.
“So the reality of the discussion of how many operable windows do we have and what sort of air quality flow do we have is a very real one.”
She, too, expressed unhappiness that Chipouras and Kail were not present and said she was not prepared to act on the request to recommend additional funding until her questions were answered.
Merk-Gould said the memo indicated the project architect might absorb some of the cost of the window adjustments but that was not clear.
“I feel that it has created a very awkward situation and that perhaps we should table this until we get our questions answered,” she said.
The board then voted 4-2 (Halstead, Owades opposed, Urist absent) in favor of postponing action on the item until a later date when Chipouras and Kail are available.
