Trustees OK new roof for Hernandez Elementary

SAN MARCOS CISD

The SMCISD board of trustees on Tuesday approved a guaranteed maximum price for a renovation project and heard a presentation on options for the district’s Child Development Center.

At a special called meeting, the trustees approved the guaranteed maximum price of $2.8 million for a new roof for Hernandez Elementary School. The maximum came from the district’s construction manager at-risk for the project, Cadence McShane

Karen Griffith, SMCISD’s assistant superintendent of business and support services, said the project will not interrupt classes; most of the work, including the noisy part, will be done over the summer. Workers will have a few items to complete after classes start in the fall, she said.

The board also heard the district’s options for converting the current Teaching Learning and Assessment building into a new Child Development Center (CDC). The district had intended to do some modest renovations to the building.

“Basically, under this plan all we were going to do was go in there and do some touching up of this building,” Griffith told the trustees.

However, architectural firm Perkins + Will developed a plan that would provide more capacity and do more to upgrade the aged building. Griffith said that adopting the architects’ proposal would take the project from $291,000 to $1.4 million. The board did not make a decision on the proposal, but most trustees seemed to like the idea of more substantial upgrades to the building.

“With our fund balance being as flush and as cash positive as it is, I think the expectation from taxpayers that this money would be spent on district facilities and operations and infrastructure,” trustee Miguel Arredondo said, “and I think this capital improvement project meets what I would assume is a reasonable expenditure on behalf of the district.”

The CDC project will be on the agenda for the trustees to make a decision at their regular meeting on June 18.