There will likely be a bus lane built at the Jackson Avenue School before the season’s first snowfall.
Westbury-based asphalt and masonry company Stasi Brothers will start work on the job early next week, according to MIneola Superintendent of Schools Michael Nagler.
Nagler announced the Mineola Board of Education’s selection of Stasi Brothers as the contractor at last Thursday night’s board meeting.
The board and district administrators were intent on having the bus lane in place on the west side of the Jackson Avenue School on Saville Road as a safety measure before the snow season starts. Some students must currently cross Jackson Avenue to board buses in front of the school at dismissal time, a more hazardous procedure if a snowfall occurs.
Nagler cited another crucial aspect of timing, saying, “It’s roughly a two-to-three week project, and it has to be done before the asphalt plants close in November for the winter.”
The board considered 13 different options – all but one suggested by a committee of volunteers – and finally selected one with the lowest projected cost of $170,408.53. The other 12 proposals the board had considered ranged from $191,000 to $362,000.
Nagler said the Mineola Village Board approved the permit for construction of the bus lane at last Wednesday’s meeting.
“We’ve come up with the least invasive way to get kids safely on buses,” Nagler told the village board.
Under the school district’s reconfiguration plan, all third and fourth graders now attend the Jackson Avenue School.
Nagler told the village board all students who walk to school will be dismissed before the rest of the 250 students board the buses to leave. He said dismissal time has been changed to 3:30 p.m. to avoid conflicts with buses from nearby Chaminade High School, which dismisses its students one hour earlier.
In response to village Trustee Lawrence Werther’s question on why the project was to be done while school was in session, Nagler said the school board had planned to do it during the summer but couldn’t reach a consensus in time to accomplish it. Nagler said the construction work would take two weeks.
“It seems minimally invasive on the roads,” Werther said.
Melville-based engineering company H2M designed the bus lane, which will accommodate four of eight buses at dismissal time. School Board Trustee Christine Napolitano came up with the idea at a meeting this summer after the board had reviewed 12 other plans without reaching a consensus.
The $170,408.53 price tag includes $100,000 to be taken from the district’s capital budget for the site work, drainage and paving, according to Jack Waters, Mineola assistant superintendent of finance. Landscaping and construction of a fence to enclose a rear walkway at the school are also part of the project.
“We’re happy that the students won’t be having to cross Jackson Avenue,” Waters said.
Jackson Avenue students will board four buses on Saville Road and four buses on Marcellus Road, on the east side of the school.
The initial impetus for the project came from parents objecting to their children crossing the heavily trafficked Jackson Avenue.
The plan, which is the simplest of all the solutions considered, preserves a total of 50 parking spaces available on the school’s parking lot as well as its green space for recreation. Various bus loops designed to alleviate the safety issue would have reduced green space and parking space at the school.
Nagler said locating buses along Saville Road will open up parking space on Jackson Avenue for parents picking their kids up from school.
The site plan for the bus lane can be viewed on the Mineola district Web site at: http://www.mineola.k12.ny.us/files/_fNJBR_/b9954a4b7916ef923745a49013852ec4/Microsoft_PowerPoint_-_12-08-08_jackson_presentation_12.pdf
In other developments:
• The board approved the hiring of eight permanent substitute teachers for Mineola High School, as part of a total of 25 permanent substitutes the district intends to hire. At the board’s Oct. 4 meeting, 14 permanent
substitutes were hired for all three elementary schools. Other substitutes for the MIneola Middle School will hired at the board’s next meeting on Nov. 1.
Each teacher is hired at a rate of $100 per day from Oct. 1 to May 31, 2013. The total cost of hiring the substitutes will be an estimated $405,000 of the district’s $420,000 annual budget for that purpose.
