CCISD reviewing construction managers for new school
Posted On: Wednesday, Dec. 9 2009 05:15 AM
By Jackie Stone
Killeen Daily HeraldCOPPERAS COVE – With designs in hand, Copperas Cove ISD is weighing the first round of bids in plans for a new 800-student elementary school.
On Tuesday morning the district received two bids seeking to be the construction manager at-risk for the school to be located on the corner of Coy Drive and Lutheran Church Road near Farm-to-Market 116.
At the regular school board meeting Tuesday night, Superintendent Rose Cameron said the district would be taking more time to review the bids because they differed widely.
"What we are going to do is interview each of the companies and make sure we are comparing apples to apples. And once we feel like we have good pricing on both, I'll make a recommendation at a later date," Cameron said.
According to the Texas Education Code, a construction manager at-risk assumes the risk for construction, rehabilitation, alteration or repair of a facility at the contracted price as a general contractor and provides consultation to the school district regarding construction during and after the design of the facility.
In October, board members approved an architectural plan for the school.
The board took no action on the bids Tuesday. Cameron said the board may call a special meeting to approve one of the bids before the next regular meeting in January.
"The longer we delay the greater chance we have of prices going up, so we'd like to get it bid and get our guaranteed maximum price set so we can move forward," she said.
Cameron said the real test of the project will be when bids for the actual cost of construction come in, "because that's when we'll have to make the decision if we are going to build if those are a lot higher than what we've set aside."
Cameron also announced Tuesday the hiring of Terry Griffin – currently an assistant principal at Williams Ledger Elementary School – as the district's new director of intervention.
The position is a new one that doesn't add additional staff, but reorganizes duties in the central office, said Brenda Cox, assistant superintendent for curriculum and student services.
"There's all these different state initiatives that are all about the same thing – when kids are struggling, get a system in place," she said. "What I want this person to do is step back, look at the big picture and get all those different state systems into one cohesive system of intervening for kids when they are struggling."
Cox said the district is also accepting applications for another new position, the director of programs and college readiness. That person would work with special programs such as gifted and fine arts programs as well as finding more opportunities for career and college readiness programs.
Cameron also presented some results of the Academic Excellence Indicator System to the board that looked at data such as enrollment and test results since 1994. A broader public hearing on the results will be held next month, she said.
In other action, the board approved a waiver allowing the district to cap the number of foreign exchange students in the district at six for another three years. The move aims to prevent exchange students from straining campus resources, Cameron said.
Board president Joan Manning said the cap has been in place for several years and the district regularly has the maximum six students.
Contact Jackie Stone at
jstone@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7474.