Columbia County news
This excerpted story is provided courtesy of the latest issue of The Columbia Paper, which can be seen online at www.columbiapaper.com.
Ichabod Crane school considers $15M improvement project
KINDERHOOK — The Ichabod Crane School Board discussed a possible $15 million capital improvement project at a special meeting June 19.
District Business Manager Michael Brennan called the proposed upgrades the “largest project that’s been done here in quite some time.”
The proposed capital improvements include adding bullet resistant “film” and glass at the greeter stations at all three school buildings; building a new road connecting the primary school to the other two school buildings on the campus, which will help with the one-bell bus system the district plans to start this September; replacing temporary walls with permanent ones in the classroom “pods” in the elementary wing of the middle school building; updating the science classrooms in the high school, and putting in artificial turf on one of the sports fields.
Representatives from Csarch, an Albany architecture and engineering firm, were at the meeting to review the plans. The goal is to have a final plan approved by the board in October and to have residents vote on whether to fund the project in December.
Brennan said the district would “have some debt falling off the books” from a past capital project in 2021, so if the school takes on debt for this project it won’t have a large impact on the school tax for property owners.
— Emilia Teasdale