Published: 4/16/2022 8:40:41 PM
Modified: 4/16/2022 8:39:22 PM
SOUTH DEERFIELD — Frontier Regional School is looking at repair or replacement options for its boilers after one of them sprung a leak last month.
In a video shown by Superintendent Darius Modestow, water can be seen pooling around one of the school’s 27-year-old boilers.
“We have a fan on it constantly absorbing the water that’s still leaking,” Modestow told Frontier School Committee members last week. The issue with repairing or replacing it, however, is both boilers will need to be addressed. “If we go in to replace Unit No. 2, Unit 1 will be affected. It’s a tight room.”
Modestow said the Capital Improvement Subcommittee is committed to looking at repairing the boiler, which could cost up to $15,000, while also looking at full replacements of the boilers, which could cost up to “half a million.”
“We’re talking about a track-size project,” if the school opts for a full replacement, he said, referencing the construction project that was completed last fall. “Let’s see if we can get a patch on it.”
In a subsequent email, Modestow said Turners Falls-based Jamrog HVAC & Plumbing will be repairing the leaking boiler. He added the district has reached out to a few engineering companies as it seeks a feasibility study about the future of the two boilers and what sort of options are available.
Phil Kantor, a Capital Improvement Subcommittee member and Conway Select Board chairman, said the subcommittee wanted to look at repairs first because of the huge disparity between patching one boiler and replacing both of them.
“The best-case scenario is that it could be fixed for somewhere between a few thousand to $15,000,” Kantor said. “As long as that’s a potential and you weigh that against half a million … that’s what led Capital in this direction.”
Sunderland member Keith McFarland agreed that the repair is the right way to go, but if a replacement is undertaken, then the district should think hard about how it wants the school to be heated.
“What do we want for energy supply 20 to 30 years from now?” McFarland asked. “I just wanted to make sure we were thinking way ahead rather than just trying to throw money at it and go with old technology.”
School Choice
In other business, the School Committee received an update on School Choice numbers for the upcoming year.
Frontier Principal George Lanides said the school has gotten 19 pending applications for seventh grade, but may not be able to accept every application. For other grades, the district has five applications for eighth and ninth grade, three for 10th grade and five for 11th grade.
“I would recommend we open it up,” Lanides said, “and approve School Choice moving forward this year.”
Modestow noted the district will not know how many sixth-grade students will choose to stay in the district, which means it cannot accept every School Choice application until those numbers are finalized because the school has budgeted for a certain number of students.
“We want to leave a bit of a cushion because we don’t know who is going to be moving into the district,” Lanides added.
Kantor asked Lanides where in the region School Choice students are coming from, to which Lanides said the majority of them are coming from Franklin County.
“They’re coming from Greenfield, they’re coming from Mohawk, they’re coming from Pioneer,” Lanides said. “That’s been the trend.”
