Alamance-Burlington school board members voted 5-0 during a special called work session last week to hire Greensboro-based Samet Corporation to complete $7.3 million in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system upgrades at eight ABSS schools (see accompanying chart for a breakdown).
Voting in favor were: school board chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves; vice chairman Donna Westbrooks; and board members Dan Ingle, Seneca Rogers, and Ryan Bowden. Bowden participated in the discussion and voted by phone.
School board members Chuck Marsh and Dr. Charles Parker were absent due to illness, Ellington-Graves announced at the outset of the work session.
The HVAC upgrades will be funded by the remaining $19.5 million in bonds that the county issued this spring from the $150 million bond package that voters approved for ABSS in November 2018, ABSS chief operations officer Greg Hook confirmed The Alamance News during a break in the meeting.
Hook told school board members that work on the HVAC upgrades is scheduled to begin on August 19 – right before the new school year starts on Monday, August 26 – and substantial completion is targeted for November 21, 2025.
ABSS issued a “Request for Qualifications” (RFQ) for the HVAC projects this spring, Hook reminded the board.
Responses were evaluated based on several criteria, including: the firm’s expertise and past performance with similar K-12 education projects; adherence to the terms of past contracts; and the firm’s proximity to and familiarity with Alamance County, the COO said last Monday. He did not elaborate for the board how many firms had responded to the RFQ; nor did he identify any other firms that responded.
Absent any discussion, school board members voted unanimously, 5-0, to approve Hook’s recommendation to award the $7.3 million contract to Samet. Pending the availability of funds, an HVAC upgrade at a ninth school – E.M. Holt Elementary, currently estimated to cost $2.7 million – also could be completed under the new contract that school board members voted to award to Samet.
Samet was previously awarded a $26 million contract in the summer of 2022 to complete air quality upgrades at eight schools.
Meanwhile, Hook, the school system’s COO, hosted a tour at Turrentine Middle School, one of the eight schools covered under the July 2022 contract with Samet, to highlight some of the air quality projects that are well underway and scheduled for completion in August.
The air quality improvement projects at Turrentine Middle and seven other schools had been funded by a portion of the $77.5 million in federal Covid-19 relief funding – formally known as the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding (ESSER) – ABSS received at the height of the pandemic.
[Story continues below photos of some of the work at Turrentine Middle School.]
Any remaining federal stimulus funding is required to be spent by the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 2024, in keeping with federal guidelines that govern the three stimulus packages passed by Congress between March 2020 and March 2021.
That influx of federal stimulus relief funding enabled ABSS to install a “dedicated outside air system (DOAS)” piping network throughout Turrentine Middle School, as well as two “brand new cold water chillers,” Hook pointed out during the tour Tuesday afternoon. The air quality upgrades at Turrentine cost approximately $3.7 million, according to the contract that school board members approved in July 2022.
Many of the windows that had been installed in 1961 when Turrentine Middle School was built also have been replaced as part of the same contract that ABSS awarded to Samet in 2022, Hook said.
The air quality upgrades at Turrentine and seven other ABSS facilities covered under the first $26 million contract with Samet are targeted for “substantial completion” by August 19, a week before students are scheduled to begin the new 2024-25 school year, Hook said Tuesday.
“We really received a great benefit from the ESSER funds,” Hook said during the tour. “This is what occurred at each of the eight sites [covered under the 2022 contract].”
The COO added, “We are well underway in correcting the issues we are aware of.” Hook said that the ABSS administration is working closely with county government officials to plan for ongoing facility repairs.
Meanwhile, the school system’s facilities department has implemented several other measures in hopes of mitigating a recurrence of the widespread mold contamination that shuttered 33 ABSS facilities and cost $27 million to remediate late last summer, delaying the start of the 2023-24 school year by two weeks.
While the previous practice had been for “16 to 20 years” to turn off HVAC systems in ABSS schools on nights and weekends, they’re now running 24/7, the COO said.
Dehumidifiers have also been set up in all schools and are programmed to turn on automatically when building humidity levels reach a certain percentage, generally around 50 percent, and pull moisture from the air, Hook told The Alamance News Tuesday.
Other air quality upgrades scheduled for completion in August
The other schools that are receiving HVAC upgrades under the 2022 contract include:
- Williams High School ($7.7M): Complete overhaul of its HVAC system, including additional chillers, air handlers, pumps, a new pipe system, and window replacements at the front of the school.
- Broadview Middle School ($4M): Upgrade for basement air handling unit; refurbishing “cooling towers”; total window replacements throughout school; new HVAC controls; replacement of seven water pumps.
- Turrentine Middle ($3.7M): Replacement of two chillers; two air handlers in the gym; installation of two outdoor air units; replacement of 11 indoor air handlers and 12 restroom exhaust fans; window and door replacements throughout; and new HVAC controls.
- Western Middle School ($2.9M): Install one rooftop unit for gym; replace 31 classroom fan coils, 13 air handlers, and one chiller.
- A.O. Elementary School ($2.5M): Adding two HVAC systems for gym; replacement of 12 “split systems” in hallways, office area, and kindergarten wing; replace air handlers in cafeteria and media center; new piping system and HVAC controls; replacement of windows in media center and one hallway; install 12 new classroom unit ventilators;.
- South Graham Elementary School ($1.8M): Replace two gym units; replace two split system units and two condensing units; replace 20 classroom unit ventilators and condensing units; new HVAC controls and new duct work.
- South Mebane Elementary School ($1.7M): Add two cooling split systems for gym; install one rooftop unit for cafeteria and two units for the media center; replace multiple air handlers and 17 classroom unit ventilators.
- Eastlawn Elementary School ($1.7M): Install two hot water pumps; replace 52 fan coils, one office air handler, and two gym air handling units; install new HVAC upgrades; replace windows in front hallway and media center.
