Discussions on the scope and cost of district building projects continued at the meeting of the Covington Independent Public Schools Board of Education last week and served as a jumping off point for broader discussions about communications and disagreements between district staff and the board.
The conversations picked up from a discussion in November about a construction project related to the ventilation system at the Holmes High School campus. At that meeting, board member Stephen Gastright, who works professionally as an architect, expressed dismay that the ventilation project’s cost had climbed from about $4 million to just over $7 million and said that he was unwilling to approve any more building projects until he had updated estimates.
Last week’s discussion served as the follow-up to Gastright’s comments. The district’s Director of Human Resources and Operations, Ken Kippenbrock, presented updated cost estimates for a large, multivariate plan of improvements for the Holmes Middle and High School campuses. Projects on the docket include improvements to the auditorium, various infrastructure improvements, classroom improvements, and a new field for the softball team at the high school, among other projects.
Joining Kippenbrock were Ralph Cooper and Mark Perry of Emboss Design, a Newport-based architecture firm contracted to produce plans for the construction. The projects, first approved in 2022, had initial cost estimates of about $9.5 million for the construction and just over $11 million for construction plus other fees and administration expenses, usually referred to as soft costs.
Kippenbrock, Cooper and Perry presented the new numbers and recommended the board postpone several of the proposed projects to stay within budget. The projects they proposed to delay were renovations to the middle and high school classrooms as well as improvements to the exterior of the administrative plaza.
Kippenbrock asked the board to examine the numbers and consider voting on the updated scope and cost of the projects at the next meeting later in January. If approved, the board would vote on bidding out the projects to builders at a later meeting.
Notably, the proposed softball field, which had an estimated price tag of about $3.2 million, was not on the chopping block, but the timing of November’s conversation about ballooning costs was uneasy.
At the end of last year, the district had been subject to a visit from the Kentucky High School Athletic Association to see how well the district complied with Title IX, a federal program aimed at reducing gender discrimination in education.
The athletic association’s report concluded that the district was deficient in providing equal facilities for girls sports, specifically softball, whose field was housed at Glenn O. Swing Elementary School and which paled in comparison to Meinken Field, the field for the boy’s baseball team. The report suggested the district do all it could to build out facilities for the girls to match the ones provided for the boys–right around the same time the discussion about building scope creep came up.
In fact, two members of the Tom Ellis Athletic Memorial, or TEAM, Foundation came out to the meeting to encourage the board to move forward in approving the construction of the field. They referenced the Title IX report and laid out the timeline for the field’s development, the earliest conversations of which can be traced back to 2020. They also stated that the foundation had already raised about $192,000 for the field.
“We’ve been working on this for a long time,” foundation member Diana Siffle, who formerly worked as an athletic trainer with the district, told LINK nky after the meeting.
“They want to see it started,” Siffle added, referencing the Title IX report. “… So we are past the point of saying we’re working on this.”
The ramifications of the Title IX report are unclear at this time, and there was discussion among the board members as to whether the field ought to be removed from the broader campus improvements and bid out separately. Much of the Holmes campus is old and requires specialized construction knowledge, unlike the field. If the field was bid separately, it could potentially bring in more interest from builders as the work would be comparatively simple. Yet, it would also entail more administrative costs and extra approvals from the board.
Following some discussion about the nuts and bolts of the cost projections, Gastright reiterated his frustration about what he characterized as a lack of forethought and clarity on district building projects.
“It’s just frustrating because we get presented one thing and by the time we come around to approve it for construction, it’s a different project,” Gastright said. “We don’t know what it is; it’s been delayed; it cost too much. We’re not getting updated.”
He acknowledged the issues surrounding the Title IX report but still used the field as an example of what he was talking about.
“When the softball field came up, I said the only way I’ll approve it is if you put in money to improve our classrooms,” Gastright said. “So what? So now it’s the thing that’s postponed…, the one thing I asked for to vote for this softball field initially.”
He also took the opportunity to respond to what he said were criticisms he’d received from the community about his reluctance to approve new projects.
“These are our neighbors we’re talking with,” Gastright said, “and they’re saying, like, ‘you said you were going to approve it; why isn’t it happening?’ It’s not us… We approve projects, and the scope is different.”
He referenced board meetings and tax hearings from last year, specifically related to the prospect of new air conditioning at the high school. At the tax hearing last year, where the board approved a tax increase, there was uncertainty as to whether those new taxes would be enough to provide new air conditioning at Holmes.
He addressed the district Superintendent, Alvin Garrison, saying that he would approve the revised campus construction scope, including the softball field, if Garrison could affirm that “at some point the missing scope from this along with the air conditioning would be achievable…” in the future, although he was still “aggravated” that the classroom improvements were likely to be postponed.
“We’re not perfect, and I apologize if you feel like that we’re getting information not in a timely manner,” Garrison said. “We will do better, but I support both projects. I think it’s right for our kids. I think anything we can do to improve our facilities on that campus is the right thing to do.”