The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School will ask Island voters to fund a dust collection system for the school’s building trades program.
At a school committee meeting Tuesday, Career and Technical Education director Barbara-Jean Chauvin said the current system is inadequate, and has been for several years.
Chauvin said that the original central ducting system the school utilized was decommissioned almost 15 years ago, and two small portable units have taken that system’s place as a “temporary” solution.
But those small units are taking up space in an already close-quarters learning space, and Chauvin said a more permanent central ducting system should be considered.
Initially, the high school committee planned to seek funding for three warrant articles — one of them having to do with tree planting and landscaping near the Deer Run neighborhood adjacent to the high school track. Committee member Kris O’Brien said the committee met with the Deer Run Association and it was determined that the initial estimated cost of $100,000 for landscaping work was unnecessary.
“We have reduced that number to $25,000. There was a lot of give and take, and we are happy to have worked so closely with residents of Deer Run,” O’Brien said.
That $25,000 will come out of the school’s operating budget.
O’Brien said Chris Huntress has volunteered to design the landscape plan at no additional cost to the school. “He is very generous for that, and we thank him,” O’Brien said.
Another proposed article to allocate $25,000 to generate plans for a redesign and upgrade of the horticulture facilities is also coming out of the school’s budget.
O’Brien said it is clear that the needs of the horticulture facility are second to the track project; “that’s why we decided to embed that in the budget.”
School officials had also considered another warrant article for a girls gym locker room and fire alarms, but because of Title IX issues, O’Brien said the locker room has to be upgraded and so it will be included in the budget. The fire alarm system, O’Brien said, is “more of a convenience than a fire safety necessity,” so funding for that was removed entirely by the committee.
Dust settles
Committee members weighed the benefits of newer portable units, versus a permanent system with central ducting, for the trades shop.
Chauvin explained that in the recent past, the school applied for and was awarded a competitive grant from the Massachusetts State Capital Improvement Fund, specifically focused on enriching vocational and technical schools by upgrading equipment. “That’s how we were able to put in the the new greenhouse and also increase the amount of equipment available to the horticulture program,” Chauvin said.
According to Chauvin, installing a new dust collection system is a “dire need in terms of the safety and health of our students and staff.”
Chauvin said that if a decision is made on the type of system, and money from the towns is secured, she can apply for the state grant that would provide a 50 percent match up to $500,000.
“We have to be able to clean and filter the air in order to prevent respiratory ailments — we are currently not meeting the needs of students in that program,” Chauvin said.
A centralized system, Chauvin said, would last for about 25 years, and would be the least noisy and obtrusive option, compared with the portable units.
The current system poses a possible risk to students, Chauvin said, with hoses and wires attached to the portable units creating a tripping hazard. “Tripping in general is dangerous, but with so much woodworking machinery and heavy equipment, this increases the hazard,” Chauvin said.
“The central system would carry dust outside of the building, there would be no tripping hazards, and it wouldn’t make an already crowded space more crowded,” Chauvin said.
If the school decided to get portable units, Chauvin said there would need to be around five more units to accommodate the needs of the program. And because each unit takes up a three-square-foot space, and produces a high noise level, Chauvin suggested they may exceed OSHA limits.
Each portable dust collection unit would cost about $2,000, and would last for five to eight years, according to Chauvin.
Chauvin included in the warrant article $25,000 for the planning and design for a permanent system that would not be covered by the state grant.
“Calculations need to be done to determine airflow and static pressure loss, and I am not qualified to do that work; we would need to contract out for a specialist,” Chauvin said.
One con of the central system that Chauvin noted was the possibility of a building project in the future, and the necessary adjustments that would need to be made to a permanent ducting network.
“The mechanics and materials of this system could be reengineered, but there would be some work involved with changing that to accomodate a building project,” Chauvin said.
Committee member Amy Houghton asked what would happen if the final cost of the project exceeded the projected cost to be asked for at town meeting.
Finance manager Mark Friedman said the new contingency line recently added to the school’s budget can be used for just such unanticipated changes in expenditures.
He also said having the design and engineering plans would establish an accurate projected cost, and “If [the school] finds that cost is more than we have budgeted, we have time to come back to the table and apply for the grant with the updated cost.”
Houghton suggested that the $25,000 for design and engineering of a dust collection system be moved back into the budget so the school can establish an accurate overall cost irrespective of the towns voting yay or nay on the article.
The committee approved that suggestion.