By DAVID VITRANO

News Editor

LULING—Just as the St. John school system begins implementing its facilities improvement plan, the St. Charles Parish School Board passed a motion on Wednesday allowing for improvements at some of its own schools.

The largest of these measures dealt with the construction of covered play areas at the district’s elementary schools.

The board accepted a bid of just over $2.5 million from Pete Vicari General Contractor Inc. for the project. This bid includes option alternate number one, which also provides for covered walkways to and from the play areas.

In all, the district received six bids for the construction project. Vicari’s bid came in over $250,000 less than the next lowest bid from Aegis Construction.

Acceptance of this bid kept the board on budget for this project.

The construction will entail building identical playground areas at each public elementary school in the parish. The areas will all be identical to keep a sense of fairness and to ease dealings with the contractors.

Construction will start at the Norco K-3 and Norco 4-6 schools on the east bank and will continue in a “leapfrog fashion,” according to John Rome, administrator of physical plant services for St. Charles.  This is so the project may be completed as quickly as possible while eliminating the chance of having numerous unfinished sites throughout the parish.

Rome said he hopes for the project to be completed by the start of the 2009-2010 school year.

The board was also assured no construction would take place during testing week.

School Board President Steve Crovetto expressed concern over the availability of materials to complete the play areas, as the district has experienced problems with the attainment of construction materials in the past. Rome told him materials had already been set aside.

Also, board member Clarence Savoie asked about the possibility of attaching storage areas, restrooms or classrooms to the new covered areas. Rome advised him there was no money in the budget for that now but the areas will be constructed in such a way as to leave the option open.

Other construction projects around the district dealt with at the meeting include replacing the roof at Lakewood Elementary and A.A. Songy Kindergarten. The roofs have exceeded their life expectancy, and the board passed a motion to accept bids on the project.

In other construction-related news, the board accepted a change order for the construction of the team room with public restrooms at Hahnville High School. Because of inclement weather, 13 days had to be added to the project’s expected completion date, which was changed from Feb. 24 to March 9.