The Capital Project 2024 that district residents will vote on May 21, 2024, is the result of a months-long collaboration among our district administrators, leadership teams, teachers, staff, community stakeholders and professional architecture and engineering partners. 

The $21.07 million proposal includes upgrades to the school environment that will impact the health and safety of students and staff, addresses necessary building maintenance items and revamps existing learning areas in our three school buildings to improve the quality and breadth of student learning opportunities - all without any additional tax impact on district residents.

We’ve tailored this proposal to meet the needs of our students while, at the same time, virtually eliminating any financial impacts on our residents. 

If approved by voters, we feel this project will ensure the continued excellence of our district for years to come.

The roots of our capital project proposal stretch back to the summer of 2023 with the completion of our Building Condition Survey. The survey, which state law requires districts complete every five years, provided a comprehensive assessment of our district facilities, identified areas in need of improvement and ranked them by priority. 

Armed with this information, our Capital Project Committee began meeting in early 2024 to hash out the initial scope of the project. 

This committee includes district principals, administrators, Board of Education members, instructional and non-instructional staff, parents and community members as well as representatives from our two engineering and construction partners, Gordon W. Jones Associates, Architects P.C. and Buffalo Construction Consultants. 

The committee was tasked with determining which items identified in our Building Condition Survey to include as part of this capital project proposal. As part of that process, committee members met with multiple user groups comprised of faculty and staff whose rooms and workspaces would be impacted by specific project elements. 

Discussions about what upgrades to pursue in our high school science rooms, for example, included our high school science teachers who are in the best position to say which improvements are most needed and which aren’t.

By conducting these meetings, we hope to ensure our capital project proposal includes appropriate upgrades and that final project elements are designed with the needs of students and staff in mind. 

Should voters approve the capital project proposal, these user group meetings will continue during the project’s final design phase. 

Work included as part of this capital project proposal falls under three main headings: Health and safety, building maintenance and district programming. 

The first centers on upgrades to our buildings and building systems that impact the health and safety of students, staff and visitors. This would include upgrades to our fire alarm systems in the elementary, middle and high schools, work to ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act across all three school buildings as well as a redesign of the elementary school parking lot to include a designated bus pick-up and drop-off area and generally facilitate traffic flow and boost pedestrian safety. 

Building maintenance items are meant to ensure we’re addressing issues with our school buildings and campus as they arise and before they become more costly to address and possibly interrupt student instruction. 

In this portion of the capital project, we would: 

• Construct a new maintenance building on our middle-high school campus. This new structure will provide needed space to store the district’s trucks, snowplowing and other equipment once its Sheldon Elementary lease expires in 2028; 

• Repair our middle-high school loading dock;

• Complete masonry repairs and update entry-exit lighting at all three school buildings;

• Replace existing windows in the middle and high schools with new, more energy efficient windows; and 

• Make repairs to our elementary school elevator. 

Finally, project elements that fall under the ‘District Programming’ heading are intended to improve the quality of educational offerings our students have access to. 

In the elementary school, we would:

• Renovate the Library Media Center;

• Relocate and renovate our STEAM classroom; 

• Create a new Counseling Suite that houses our school counselor, school psychologists and related services in one centralized location; 

• Relocate our existing speech classroom and convert it to a related services suite;

• Renovate and relocate our nurse’s office to be immediately adjacent to the main building entrance, eliminating the need for parents to enter the school proper when picking up their sick children; and

• Relocate and renovate the playground.

In the middle/high school, work would include: 

• The renovation of our high school science rooms;

• The consolidation of our middle school lockers rooms. At present, there are two sets of locker rooms used by middle school students. The first is adjacent to our pool and is used during swimming units. The second set is located near the Middle School Gymnasium but is on the second floor. We would convert this second floor locker room to storage and then expand the pool locker rooms to be used by all middle school students for all physical education classes; and

• General upgrades to our IT infrastructure including new cabling, servers and wireless access points. As we continue to incorporate more technology into instruction, we need to ensure our IT infrastructure is able to keep up. We completed a Comprehensive Technology Condition Survey as part of our broader Building Condition Survey in summer 2023 which helped us prioritize the most needed upgrades, which we’ve included in this proposal. 

If approved by district residents, this capital project would have no impact on Attica’s school tax rate. 

The vast majority of the project - about 83 percent of eligible project costs - would be paid for through additional building aid from New York State. The balance of the project - about $4.94 million - would be paid for using money from the district’s existing capital project reserve fund.

District voters approved the creation of this reserve in 2015 for the purpose of funding the local share of future capital projects. As voters must approve the use of capital reserve funds, the referendum district residents will vote on May 21 would authorize the district to spend $4.94 million from this fund to cover the local share of the capital project. 

Again, this proposed capital project would have no impact on the school taxes district residents pay each year. 

If voters approve the proposal, attention would immediately turn to finalizing the design elements of the project, a process that would likely take about 6 months. At that point, the district would submit the final project design to the New York State Education Department for code review and issuance of a building permit.

The state’s review would likely take about 6 months. Upon code review and building permit receipt from SED, the district would then create its request for proposal packages beginning in late spring or early summer of 2025 and put the project out to bid by fall of 2025. Construction would start in late fall or early winter of 2025 and would be projected to conclude in late 2027 or early 2028.

Please click the link below to participate in our Interactive map. Once the link opens please use your mouse to hover over each of the identified locations ranging from 1-8. Press control and click on each of the colored boxes and the interactive map will open a new window showcasing artistic renderings or architectural designs of each space.

Capital Project 2024-Interactive Map

Please note that for the science renderings within the interactive map please click on the text identified, "8. New Earth Science Classrooms, Chemistry Lab and Science Storage Areas."

In the video above, Attica Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kiel Illg and Assistant Superintendent of Business and Operations Meaghan Matuszak lead a presentation on our proposed 2024 capital project.

*Artist's renderings and architectural plans are subject to change.

What: Attica Central School District’s 2024 Capital Project Vote

When: Tuesday, May 21, 2024 from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Where: Attica Performing Arts Center, 3338 E. Main Street Rd., Attica.

Why: District residents will vote on whether to approve the district’s $21.07 million capital project proposal, which will have no additional tax impact.; 

More info: Click here to view artist's renderings and architectural plans of capital project components in the Attica Elementary, Middle and High schools. Please note that these renderings and plans are subject to change.

March 19: 6 p.m. at the Attica Municipal Building, 9 Water St., Attica. District representatives will give a presentation about the project and take questions during the Attica Village Board meeting. 

March 26: Java Town Hall, 4222 Rt. 98, North Java, at 6 p.m.  District representatives will give a presentation about the project and take questions.

April 16: Bennington Fire Department at 6 p.m.  District representatives will give a presentation about the project and take questions.

April 24: Attica Performing Arts Center, 3338 East Main Street Rd., Attica, at 5:30 p.m. Representatives of the district, Gordon Jones Architects and Buffalo Construction Consultants will give a presentation about the project and take questions. 

May 7: 6:30 p.m. in the Middle/High School Cafeteria, 3338 East Main Street Rd., Attica. This is the public hearing for our district’s proposed 2024-25 school budget and other referendums. In addition to providing information about the budget proposal, district representatives will give a presentation about the capital project and take questions.