ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2013 Despite current financial challenges due to the state budget impasse,\u00a0 Allentown School District’s board heard an overview of $230 million in potential district projects during Thursday’s building committee meeting.<\/p>\n
Board member Phoebe Harris said the highlighted project was the William Allen natatorium. The pool project would take 36 months to complete and would cost $18.4 million.<\/p>\n
Board member Lisa Conover questioned the rationale of investing in such an old structure.<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t make sense. If the school is no good, it doesn’t make sense to put $18 million in it,” Conover said.<\/p>\n
Other projects included improvements to Dieruff High School’s practice field, which would cost between $7.5 million and $15 million, and take about 21 months to complete.<\/p>\n
Improvements to J. Birney Crum Stadium are estimated at $7.5 million, with an additional $1.5 million for track and turf. Smaller projects include a play area at Sonia Sotomayor Elementary School, field reconditioning at Harrison-Morton Middle School, and new play equipment at Washington Elementary School.<\/p>\n
The board also heard a presentation on the new Family Engagement and Resource Center planned for the Bridgeview Academy site. The Center would offer a variety of programs, including enrollment and registration, a family and community hub for mental and physical health, workforce development, ESL classes and family and social services as well as flexible programming through multiple meeting spaces.<\/p>\n
The 13,750-square-foot building is estimated to cost roughly $12 million and will be partially funded by a $522,205 PBDA Multipurpose Community Competitive Grant Program.<\/p>\n
The presentation was informational only, Chief Operations Officer Robert Whartenby said.<\/p>\n
Plans include surveys to better understand community, student and administrator needs.<\/p>\n
Of the presentation, no action was required of the board, as it was informational only.<\/p>\n
“These are just ideas\u00a0\u2014 what bubbled up to the surface,” Whartenby said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2013 Despite current financial challenges due to the state budget impasse,\u00a0 Allentown School District’s board heard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,719,10183,10188,720,10184,10182,10185,10189,10187,10186],"class_list":{"0":"post-13344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-allentown-school-district","12":"tag-asd","13":"tag-bridgeview-academy","14":"tag-harrison-morton-middle-school","15":"tag-j-birney-crum-stadium","16":"tag-lisa-conover","17":"tag-phoebe-harris","18":"tag-robert-whartenby","19":"tag-sonia-sotomayor-elementary-school","20":"tag-william-allen-natatorium"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}