School renovation serves as learning tool
Internships at work site provide real-world experience for students
The school district is pointing to 2016 Kingston High School graduate Shuaib Peters as an example of how the $137.5 million renovation and expansion project at the school can enhance academics and help students make career choices.
Peters was congratulated at the Board of Education’s most recent meeting for putting in more than 50 hours of work in an internship/mentoring program that included assisting construction supervisors.
“First of all, he had to go online and do the 10-hour OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) safety course, and after that he was allowed on the job site,” said district Buildings and Grounds Director Thomas Clapper.
“He shadowed the superintendents that were there from [construction firm] BBL,” Clapper said. “We’d go through the process of looking at what the contractors were doing, how the process worked, who had to go first, [where] electricians had to get in
before plumbers, plumbers have to get in before door hardware, all of those types of things.”
Peters’ internship program called for 54 hours of work, but he actually spent twice that amount of time on the job site, Clapper said.
Peters said the experience gave him an awareness of how construction is carried out.
“Before I started, I used to think that putting a building together was easy and simple,” he said. “Then, throughout the experience, you see that there a lot of different aspects that go into this.”
Peters, who will attend SUNY Ulster in the fall, said the internship fit well with his curiosity about construction projects.
“I enjoyed everything,” he said. “Ever since I was a little kid, I always liked building things, and this internship just made that a lot stronger.”
The program also helped Peters understand the noises KHS students had been hearing for months as
buildings were being raised on the high school’s Broadway campus.
“I used to hear a lot of banging outside, but when you get out there, you see that this banging is for a reason,” he said.
BBL project manager Robin Scrodanus said two students at a time will do the same as Peters did as the project continues.
“We’ll go through the same rigorous process we went through with interviews and essays that were written to determine who else that is an applicant will come on board,” she said.
The renovation/construction project at the school, approved by voters in 2013 and expected to be largely done in 2018, includes tearing down the Myron J. Michael building, a former middle school on the high school’s Broadway campus; creating a new bus drop-off area and student entrance at roughly the same spot; making improvements to the Kate Walton Field House; renovating part of the campus’s main building; expanding the Salzmann building, which stands between the main and Michael buildings; and demolishing the WhistonTobin building.