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School system’s science lab delayed due to cost

Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006

If built as currently designed, Frederick County Public Schools’ first ‘‘green” building would be in the red.

Due to projected cost estimates that have doubled in the last few months, the Frederick County Board of Education

has decided to postpone construction of a new Earth and Space Science Laboratory for eight to 12 months so the project can be redesigned.

Located at Lincoln Elementary School, the laboratory features a planetarium and provides hands-on education in astronomy, meteorology and oceanography to all elementary students in the county. The lab was originally built in 1962.

With a growing student population, county school officials planned to construct a new home for the laboratory, taking it out of the Lincoln building and giving it its own structure. The facility is intended to be the first ‘‘green” building in the county school system — constructed in a way that minimizes environmental impact and incorporates environmental education in its curricula.

At their meeting on Sept. 13, school board members learned from facilities director Ray Barnes that the original estimate for the project of $3.4 million had changed to $6 million, based on construction bids.

Barnes said the construction bids were substantially higher than what a cost estimator had submitted for the new laboratory.

Barnes said that the smaller nature of the project did not attract as much interest from builders, who currently have lots of work in and out of the county to choose from. Adding to the challenge of the building, he said, was the installation of advanced building systems, such as heating and cooling mechanisms.

As a ‘‘green building,” the school would use a geothermal heating ventilation and air-conditioning system that uses ground temperatures and water for climate control, saving on electricity costs versus traditional air-based systems.

School system construction manager Joe Dattoli recommended that rather than eliminating the environmental and educational aspects of the building, the board reconsider the ‘‘shell” of the building first.

The current design features rounded angles and wings attached to the main structure, which Dattoli said could be made more ‘‘contractor-friendly,” thus saving money.

Barnes told the board it could either transfer $2.5 million in funds from current construction projects with positive balances or send the project back to be redesigned.

Elementary school science curriculum specialist Philip Brohawn told the board that the curriculum of the laboratory would depend on what the school board included in the building, but the main issue was space for students to learn.

School board member Katie B. Groth said she supported a redesign, keeping as many of the innovations as possible as a teaching tool for students.

‘‘[The district] needs to make a statement on energy efficiency and give an opportunity for kids to see how this works in a building,” she said. ‘‘We can teach kids to be more cognizant of energy and the environment.”

School board member Bonnie Borsa agreed, adding that since many other county schools have needs to be funded, ‘‘we can’t get fancy” with the laboratory. She said the board should not take a large sum from the positive balances of other projects.

The rest of the board agreed, voting unanimously to redesign the building. The process will delay construction for eight to 12 months, meaning that instead of opening next fall, the new laboratory is likely to welcome students in 2008.

The building has already received the support of many community members and businesses, in the form of in-kind donations of materials and $500,000 in funds held by the Community Foundation.