The St. Mary’s County Board of Education has approved the design for the renovation and addition of Spring Ridge Middle School. The approval at their regular meeting on Wednesday comes just nine months after a fire at the school south of Lexington Park destroyed five classrooms. Those classrooms were brought back on line by the school’s opening in August.
The fire accelerated the renovation and expansion project which had originally been delayed. The state approved a fast track process in which the design and construction documents could be submitted simultaneously. Both documents were approved Wednesday.
The project also received impetus from the county commissioners, who advance funded $10 million to get the project going. Several school board members during the vote praised the county commissioners for their budget decision.
But the state funding for the $25 million project is not yet assured. The board at the meeting was told by Director of Capital Planning and Green Schools Kimberly Howe that the Maryland State Public School Construction Program has only approved $1.75 million of the $7.2 million in state funding requested for the upcoming fiscal year for the project.
Howe said that approving only portions of requests during the first round is a typical way of doing business for the state agency. Two appeal rounds are forthcoming. One this month to the agency and then one next month to the Maryland Board of Public Works, which is comprised of the governor, comptroller and state treasurer. Comptroller Peter Franchot told the board last week that the Spring Ridge project was on his radar and seemed to imply he would support it in a board vote.
Both Howe and Superintendent Dr. Michael Martirano said they were optimistic they would prevail in the appeal process. Martirano called on a large contingent of countians, including the school board, county commissioners and legislative delegation to appear before the Board of Public Works to support the project.
The approved design was thoroughly vented within the school and community. It includes replacement of the roof. The renovation will remove the final POD classrooms from the school system, to the delight of the superintendent and school board members. It includes a 5,159 square-foot addition to bring the STEM program inside from relocatables.
The Bay District Volunteer Fire Department worked with the school system to develop a fire suppression system to their liking. There were no changes to the design from a previous preliminary approval given by the board in August.
Spring Ridge M.S. Principal Angela Fulp thanked the school community for pulling together on the project and the school board in turn thanked her and her staff for their hard
