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Mt. Holly Springs Elementary is located at 110 Mooreland Ave. in Mount Holly Springs.

Mt. Holly Springs Elementary is located at 110 Mooreland Ave. in Mount Holly Springs.

Carlisle Area School Board could vote March 17 on a proposal to install modular classroom units at Mount Holly Springs Elementary School at a cost of $578,900.

Administrators briefed board members last week on their recommendation to transfer over the summer two used units of two classrooms each from a school district near Lancaster County to Mount Holly Springs.

Director of Facilities Tom Horton outlined the costs that include $348,900 to deliver and install the units on school grounds and to build decks and ramps to access the four classrooms.

The project budget also includes $100,000 in contingency, $65,000 for electric hook-up/alarm system and $65,000 for technology, furniture and equipment. To pay for this, the district plans to use $300,000 in COVID relief funds drawing the balance from capital reserves, Horton said.

“It’s a very quick, temporary fix for concerns we have right now,” Assistant Superintendent Colleen Friend told board members. “We definitely need more instructional space at the building. All our classrooms are being utilized and the building is overcrowded right now.”

The school is nearing its maximum capacity of 275 individuals with a population that includes 226 students, 13 classrooms teachers, a secretary, a principal, a nurse, a literacy coach, instructional aides, special education teachers, kitchen staff and a custodian.

While normally the school is organized into two classrooms for each grade level – kindergarten through fifth grade, a larger third-grade class is forcing the need for three classrooms this school year into the next two school years.

This year, school staff was able to make the building work by transferring a primary assessment class to Crestview Elementary School, Friend said. “But the school has art on a cart, music on a cart and health and enrichment on a cart.” She added those teachers had to modify their instruction to adjust to being mobile.

Space limits also forced staff to divide the school library into separate sections for circulation, reading support teachers and the literacy coach, Friend said. “When aides are working with students, they are doing it out in the main hallway. There’s a lot of traffic. It’s not primed for instruction.”

In researching options, Horton traveled to a school district near Lancaster where he inspected the condition of two modular units that are scheduled to be removed from a building site at the end of the current school year.

“They are in decent shape,” Horton said of the units, adding that both structures – which date from 2008 – could use brand new ceiling tiles and flooring.

Though the HVAC system within each modular classroom is nearing the end of its lifespan, Carlisle school district has air-conditioning units in storage that were salvaged from modular units that used to be at Hamilton Elementary School, Horton said. He added the cost of brand new modular units came in around $684,135 with the $100,000 contingency built into that estimate.

“The other caveat is the lead time,” Horton said, referring to new units. “One manufacturer can’t guarantee delivery until January, the other late August. I would not hold my breath. September ... October ... would be a more likely time period for a new one.”

That time lag does not match the goal of trying to get modular units in over the summer in anticipation of 2022-2023, school board president Paula Bussard said.

Building Principal Molli Davis is working on options on what classes to move to the modular units, Friend said. “We are not going to be moving special education. We also know the art classroom needs running water so that should be in the building. The modular units do not have restroom facilities so we would employ a hall monitor to be at the back door to let students [from the modular units] in and out of the building.”

Part of the $100,000 contingency fund could be used to install fencing or a covered walkway to service the modular units, Horton said.

Board member David Miller said he was shocked by the high cost of used modular units. There was some discussion about the cost of building new classrooms.

“That does not take into consideration that Holly is one of the older [school district] buildings, Bussard said. Horton noted that any renovation project would require the district to upgrade the building systems to meet current code requirements driving up the overall costs of the renovation into millions of dollars.

Email Joseph Cress at jcress@cumberlink.com.

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Set to begin in May, the resurfacing project will likely cause traffic disruptions in the downtown, including no-parking restrictions along North Baltimore Avenue

Mt. Holly Springs Elementary is located at 110 Mooreland Ave. in Mount Holly Springs.

Mt. Holly Springs Elementary is located at 110 Mooreland Ave. in Mount Holly Springs.

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