NK School Board members unhappy with office plans

New Kent School Board members are unhappy with how the county’s Board of Supervisors has handled renovation plans for turning a building at the Historic School into new school board office space. School officials claim to have been left out of the loop and charge that supervisors have ignored their recommendations.

School board members vented frustration over the situation during their regular meeting on Nov. 5.

Acting county administrator Rodney Hathaway presented floor plans approved by supervisors during the group’s Oct. 31 work session to the school board. Supervisors are now in final steps of negotiations with the contractor, Richmond-based Marengo Management, but school board members bashed supervisors, saying they were not fully involved before the plans were approved.

“This school board is frustrated with the Board of Supervisors and how it has handled this situation,” said District 1 School Board member Brett Marshall. “I still can’t figure out why our recommendations weren’t adequately involved or why our suggestions were not implemented into the plans.”

Hathaway responded, saying supervisors included all input and suggestions from the school board in the current plan.

“The Board of Supervisors believes they have,” said Hathaway, responding to Marshall’s question. “These are taxpayer dollars going into renovations of this facility.”

Marshall rebutted, emphasizing other requests school board members made that went ignored.

“Why wasn’t [Marengo owner E. Taylor Moore] involved in the talks?” Marshall questioned. “It’s difficult not to have Mr. Moore involved in these talks.

“The Board of Supervisors seem to be the ‘middle man’ in these negotiations,” continued Marshall. “And you know what they say about the middle man.”

Hathaway emphasized Moore’s involvement could cause more problems instead of help.

“I believe miscommunication can be there if Mr. Moore is involved,” said Hathaway.

“I understand that, but if Mr. Moore was involved, the board wouldn’t be left out in the dark as much,” retorted Marshall.

District 4 representative Sarah Barber, meanwhile, questioned some of the designs in the approved plans.

“Some of our recommended ideas were not fully implemented,” she said. “That poses a few possible problems, including in the file storage area and the data area.

“When new wires and duct work have to be run, according to this plan they would have to come straight through the conference room,” she concluded.

Hathaway assured school board members that flexibility still remains, based on pricing, to make changes to the plan. But superintendent of schools Rick Richardson became vocal when it came to privacy and confidentiality.

“We need to have more than some flexibility,” he said adamantly. “We have to store confidential material in secure areas.

“The state mandates that we store these documents in areas that have limited access and can be protected,” he continued. “Not only our Standards of Learning (SOL) documents need to be stored, but also have protection over our financial records as well.

Hathaway reiterated that recommendations to changes are reviewed on a case-by-case basis, which led Marshall to question future concerns if changes are made.

“What about the cost for the changes?” he asked. “What will it cost to implement our requests?”

Hathaway said it would depend on negotiations with the contractor.

School board chairwoman Gail Hardinge expressed frustration over talks in general with supervisors.

“This process has been far from collaborative,” she said. “It is not this [school] board’s intention to make this costly.

“In my 27 years, I haven’t seen anything like this,” she continued. “All I want is that the historic building to be something to be proud to have. The elderly saw the original building built and it wasn’t to their satisfaction. I just want something to be built that they can be proud of.”

Hathaway concluded by saying that supervisors would continue to work with school board members and that school board members would have access to the historic school when renovations begin.