Board Weighs in on District Renovations, Honors Varsity Football

The Garden City Board of Education gathered Tuesday evening to honor its champion football team and discuss the district's progress following recent renovations and energy performance.

Assistant superintendent for business Albert Chase presented an update on the district's ongoing renovations from a 2009 investment bond and energy performance proposal through Con Edison.

According to Chase, the project has gone quite smoothly over the last three years and will be entering its final stage come January. Since its inception, the bond has allowed the district to extend the high school building, renovate the high school bleachers, replace windows district-wide and upgrade the bus circle and both the middle school and high school, among other projects.

"We realized there were some needs in the facilities and things that needed to be worked on or brought up to code," Chase said. "We're very pleased. We're probably 90 percent through the bond right now and probably 80 percent through the energy performance project. We were able to do, essentially, over $50 million of work for only a $33 million cost."

Con Edison senior project manager Mark Litwinko updated the board on the progress of its energy performance project that was briefly set back by Superstorm Sandy. According to Litwinko, there is still work to be done regarding heating at the middle school, the high school and Stratford, and lighting at the administration building.

"We will be here well into February, March, April, making sure everything is up and running," he said. "We're not looking to end this quickly. We want to make sure we have good control of the whole building as soon as possible but we want to make sure we sit here and babysit everything and know it's running properly."

In other news, superintendent of schools Dr. Robert Feirsen commended the Garden City High School varsity football team on their triumphant 2012 season.

"This truly was an extraordinary run that the football team had," Feirsen said. "They achieved the greatness of defeating outstanding football teams along the way, both within the county and in Suffolk County to achieve the Long Island championship.

"Their game against Carey was not only the best high school game I'd ever seen, but probably the best football game I'd ever seen in terms of excitement and intensity and focus. We're here to congratulate our team tonight."