School board trustees review district facilities

BY RIKKI MASSAND

The July 25 special meeting of Syosset Central School District’s Board of Education featured a presentation recapping the district’s facility needsbut the Board of Education has been studying those needs during first half of summer. The board’s June meeting included discussion of prioritization and investments in capital projects for the school district.

On July 13 the Board of Education took a tour of facilities so members could see the facilities that were under discussion.

The board members presented several concepts and reflections on the state of district facilities, following the presentation by Superintendent of Schools Dr. Thomas Rogers.

New Syosset Board of Education President Carol Cheng, who was elected to lead the board at the July 6 reorganization meeting, asked her fellow board members if anyone had questions on the district’s Building Conditions Survey (BCS) due in the spring of 2024, which Dr. Rogers noted in his presentation.

School Board Vice President Brian Grieco asked Superintendent Rogers what info from the survey will be useful to the board. According to Dr. Rogers the district carried out an Enhanced Visual Inspection (EVI) to provide an outline of the BCS, and to parallel its process, “in order for the district to present facilities needs that could be worked on as quickly as possible.”

“We took advantage of offering the annual visual inspection to essentially preview what we will get in the Building Conditions Survey,” he noted.

Grieco noted the project priority list being compiled by consultants at H2M Architects + Engineers, but he found several of the proposals totaling $88 million over a coming five-year period to be “cosmetic-related.” He wanted to know about any shift from the focus being on projects that address safety, and putting the cosmetic district building projects