Boyertown Board Eyes $2M Modulars for Full-Day Kindergarten

The Boyertown Area School District board is set to vote tonight on a $77,250 contract to design six modular classrooms at Boyertown Elementary, which the district's own estimate calls its only elementary school without full-day kindergarten. The estimate, dated Oct. 23, prices the project at $2,020,450; CHA's proposal schedules construction for June through August 2027, and its slides target "installation Summer '27." An hour earlier, the Facilities Committee will hear an architect's report that says the wood seat boards at Bear Stadium, the district's baseball stadium, "are not safe for use" and puts a fix at $2.1 million to $2.4 million. Both meetings are at the Education Center, 911 Montgomery Ave., Boyertown: the committee at 6 p.m., the voting Legislative Meeting at 7 p.m., per BoardDocs.

Full-day kindergarten at Boyertown Elementary

The project cost estimate says the district is moving to full-day kindergarten, that Colebrookdale, Earl and Washington elementaries already offer it, and that Boyertown Elementary "is currently the only elementary school that does not." The building would sit on permanent foundations beside the school, linked to it by a covered walkway with ADA ramps.

The estimate totals $1,735,000 in construction and $285,450 in soft costs, the design, permit and contingency money that does not buy anything you can touch. The biggest lines: $900,000 for the units and foundations, $250,000 for electrical and alarm hookups, $200,000 for the canopy and a $173,500 contingency. Leasing instead would run $7,500 a month for 60 months plus about $300,000 up front for delivery, foundations, ramps and stairs. Neither the estimate nor the proposal says which fund would pay. A third attachment, a CHA site-plan sheet marked "NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION," carries boilerplate notes referring to temporary pier foundations, eight classrooms and the Borough of Quakertown; the estimate and the proposal both describe six classrooms on permanent foundations.

Item 9.A covers only the design work. CHA's proposal, dated Oct. 17 and addressed to chief financial officer Matthew Lentz, charges $77,250 for design, bidding and construction administration, plus up to $4,000 in expenses, excluding civil engineering, land-development approvals and permit fees. Design and bidding run November to February and construction June to August 2027, with CHA's slides targeting "bidding in January" (p. 9).

Bear Stadium: the seats and the price

Committee item 4.B is a 58-page Bear Stadium Facility Study by KCBA Architects, presented by KCBA's Jay Clough and athletic director Nick Palladino, per the agenda and the study. The stadium is at 120 Monroe St. in Colebrookdale Township's permit jurisdiction (study pp. 7, 35). KCBA's board slides say: "Wood seat boards are not safe for use" (p. 4).

Inspector Stadium Solutions found the bleachers' steel frames satisfactory but "the decking system and seat boards were failing due to wood deterioration" (study p. 14). The bleacher guardrails do not meet current code (p. 13), and the grandstand's guardrails have openings wider than code allows, which the slides call "a fall hazard" (study p. 37; slides p. 7). The stadium seats 2,472, with 1,956 on the bleachers and 516 under the covered grandstand, and has no wheelchair seating (p. 32); its toilet rooms do not meet accessibility rules (p. 33).

KCBA's conceptual budget (p. 40) runs $1,675,000 to $1,917,000 for construction, plus a 10 percent contingency and 15 percent soft costs, for a total of $2,093,750 to $2,396,250. New aluminum bleacher seating is $790,000 to $810,000 and rebuilding the toilet rooms $500,000 to $600,000. The figures assume fall 2026 prices and prevailing wage, the state-set pay rates for public construction, and the study says an inflation factor "should be assumed for each year going forward" (p. 41); the slides put it flatly: "Costs will inflate each year" (slides p. 14). Tonight is discussion only. The committee next meets Jan. 26, 2027.

Two change orders

A change order is a signed amendment that raises or lowers a construction contract after it is awarded. Item 9.B adds $18,573.40 to Philips Brothers Electrical Contractors' contract on the Boyertown Elementary HVAC and roof project, for wiring to a metering cabinet the utility requires, per the change order. The contract rises from $3,027,025 to $3,045,598.40; substantial completion stays Sept. 1, 2027. Item 9.C is a credit: The LandTek Group returns $96,300.23 of an "unused material allowance" on the high school turf fields, cutting that contract from $3,387,700 to $3,291,399.77, per the change order.

Learning Dome

The Learning Dome, the planetarium conversion the board approved 5-4 on Sept. 22, appears once, as discussion item 6.D, "Learning Dome Donor Agreements," led by Superintendent Scott Davidheiser. Its only attachment is Board Policy 702.1, Naming Rights, adopted Jan. 17, 2017, which requires board approval and a written agreement before district property is named. No agreement text is posted, and nothing on either agenda names the Foundation for Boyertown Education or Stellar Dreams, the donors the September motion counted on for $250,000 and up to $100,000. That motion set a Dec. 15 deadline for signed agreements and bid specifications and ordered a written progress report at every regular meeting; no report or funding-gap analysis is posted.

Also on the agenda

• Two confidential special-education settlement agreements with no amounts shown (8.A) and a 2027-28 agreement to buy food through the Lancaster-Lebanon IU13's CAFCO bid group, with no dollar figure (8.B).
• Donations worth $6,391.94 (8.C), the largest $2,314.13 in books from Shutterfly for Boyertown Elementary's book vending machine.
• First readings of 24 policies and administrative regulations, 8.D through 8.AA, including Policy 123.3 on personally owned alternate helmets. A first reading introduces a policy; each item is slated for second reading and adoption at the Nov. 24 Legislative Meeting.
• The September treasurer's report, marked draft (7.A), and routine personnel moves (9.D).
• An Oct. 20 executive session on informational, personnel and legal topics that ran "approximately 240 minutes" (2.A). Next: Nov. 10, Finance Committee at 6 p.m. and Committee of the Whole at 7 p.m. (13.A).

How to attend or comment

Each meeting has two public comment periods, each "up to 30 minutes in duration unless otherwise indicated," per the agendas on BoardDocs. Anyone who wants to speak must register with the board secretary by 1 p.m. the day of the meeting, by phone at 610-369-7548 or by email to skramer@boyertownasd.org, with name, address and topic, per the meeting notices on BoardDocs. Comments are limited to three minutes; the first period is for agenda items only, the second for anything else district-related. The district's school board page links a YouTube livestream. The Education Center's phone is 610-367-6031, per the district. Jason Szczurowski, the newest member, was appointed to a Region 2 seat in August.