MONROE: Applegarth School asbestos abated

David Kilby, Managing Editor
   MONROE — The asbestos that was in Applegarth School, which caused the district to close the school for a year, has been removed, and work now will begin on renovating a dozen classrooms.
   The school is on schedule to reopen in September and welcome approximately 300 fourth- and fifth-grade students, who are third- and fourth-graders this year at Oak Tree Elementary School just across Applegarth Road, said Dr. Kenneth Hamilton, superintendent of schools.
   At the Nov. 17, 2010, Board of Education meeting, the board approved closing the former Applegarth Middle School for the duration of the 2011-12 school year so that renovations, which included asbestos abatement, new flooring, painting, lighting, ceilings and signage, could be completed with no students or staff in the building. These renovations will help brighten the school and make it more conducive to a lower elementary student population, Dr. Hamilton said.
   The district initially planned to renovate eight classrooms in the1960s wing, but now the plan is to renovate 12 fourth- and fifth-grade rooms.
   The district removed the asbestos over the winter for $42,000, finishing Tuesday.
   In September 2002, the district held a referendum asking voters to approve costs for a new high school and the renovation of Applegarth School and other schools in Monroe. That referendum failed so the district held another that covered just the bonds for the new high school and planned to finance Applegarth renovations sometime in the future, said Jerry Tague, director of facilities, buildings and grounds.
   Two studies are being performed to make sure the renovated Applegarth School meets the community’s needs: an educational specification, or “ed spec,” study and a demographic study prepared by Ross Haber Associates.
   In the ed spec study, Dr. Hamilton is defining the function the school has to serve, then the architects, Design Ideas Group Architecture, will determine the form needed to meet that function.
   The demographic study, while analyzing prospective growth in Monroe over the next five years, will determine whether the school needs an addition.
   The district is anticipating 400 more students in three to five years in Oak Tree and Applegarth elementary schools. The entire Monroe School District has 5,905 students.
   Dr. Hamilton said if there’s another housing development built in the area of Applegarth School, the district might have to look at building another school.
   A total of $300,000 has been budgeted for the renovations and asbestos removal of Applegarth School, but Mr. Tague said a final bottom line amount won’t be available until the ed spec study is done because the study may say an addition to the school is needed.
   The board hired McCabe Environmental to design the asbestos removal project and administer testing. As an added precaution, Richard Lynch, a certified industrial hygienist of Environmental Safety Management and the district’s lead environmental consultant, provided another layer of oversight.
   ”Air quality is monitored regularly during the abatement project and will continue to be monitored for IAQ (indoor air quality) parameters beyond just asbestos leading up to the opening of the school in September,” Mr. Lynch said.
   ”The board and administration have worked very closely with Dr. Lynch to make sure the building is safe from an environmental standpoint,” Dr. Hamilton said. “There’s some miscommunication out there that the building is unsafe and not to code, which is not true.”
   He said there are some new codes that do not apply to Applegarth School, such as the need for elevators and ramps in the building.
   Applegarth has four wings, built in 1936, 1960, 1979 and 1983.
   Oak Tree School will be Applegarth’s sister school and will hold pre-kindergarten through third-grade students for the 2012-13 school year while Applegarth accommodates just fourth- and fifth-graders during its first year of reopening.
   Starting with the 2013-14 school year, Applegarth tentatively will take in third-graders, and Oak Tree will hold pre-kindergarten through second-graders so the two schools will follow the same structure as the district’s other two pairs of sister schools: Barclay Brook and Brookside as well as Mill Lake and Woodland elementary schools.
   Dennis Ventrello, principal of Oak Tree School, has been appointed principal of Applegarth School and will be responsible for recruiting the school’s staff, a task he will begin in April. With the district for 34 years, Mr. Ventrello opened Brookside School in 1991 and Oak Tree School in 2008.
   Now that the asbestos is removed, work will begin on furnishing, flooring, lighting and painting. Work also must be done to convert the building from a middle school to an elementary school.