The gym at Doyline School is about to get some major upgrades for not only everyone’s comfort, but for their security as well.
The Webster Parish School Board approved spending more than $200,000 to replace ductwork and heating and cooling units for the gym and to install security cameras on the new building as well as repair existing cameras around the school at Monday’s board meeting. Buster Flowers, transportation supervisor for WPSB, said the existing heating and cooling units in the gym no longer work and the offices and locker rooms around the gym have no heat at all.
“When they did all the remodeling at Doyline, they did not include the gym in the first part of it,” he said. “The reconstruction has been completed, and they got the bond money to do everything, but it didn’t include the air conditioning and heating for the gym.”
Two 20-ton package units will be installed for the gym, which will take care of the gym, and then Payne Company will replace three five-ton split units for the boys and girls locker rooms, the coach’s office and the laundry room.
“That’s what we call mini-splits,” Flowers said. “They have one compressor unit outside and they have several units inside each room.”
One heat exchanger is completely burned out and the other one is not keeping up, only heating one side (the home side) of the gym.
Flowers said heating and air conditioning for the entire school, excluding the gym, was replaced in the last three years.
He said work on replacing the units is expected to be sometime in February.
Money to pay for the project will come from the Doyline Bond Fund.
Cameras are expected to be repaired and more installed at the school as well, Flowers said. The cameras will cost roughly $17,500.
In other school news, Lakeside School is getting a new sign, thanks to the approval of the school board to fund the remainder of the cost.
Main Street Signs, LLC was awarded the bid to replace the sign in front of the school. While the total cost of the sign is about $14,000, the school board will fund $5,392. Board member Jerry Lott said the school’s staff and students worked hard to get the sign through fundraisers. The school was awarded a $6,000 grant from Claiborne Electric’s Operation Round Up grant program.
The remaining cost of the sign will come from the Consolidated District #3 School Building Fund.
Claiborne Electric also awarded an $8,000 grant to Central Elementary for technology improvements, he added.
Lakeside is also gaining concrete slabs at the softball fields. The school board approved the bid of $5,962.50 from Zack Crete to pour four different slabs to support new bleachers. The money for this project will come from Consolidated District #3 School Building Fund.
The Webster Parish School Board called a special meeting at 6 p.m., Monday, Jan. 12, at Central Office. On the agenda is the school board’s latest audit as well as two more items regarding additional improvements at Doyline School.