MANDATA - The Line Mountain School District project manager told the school board they have until November to make a concrete decision on future construction plans if any new buildings are to be open by August 2013.
"That gives us six months (to do all the preliminary work)," Josh Bower, who represents Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates Architects, told the board Tuesday night, giving a time line for drawing up designs, requesting permits, completing paperwork and advertising for bids before construction can even start.
"If August 2013 is the date, there's a lot that has to happen," he said.
Before October's board meeting, members will tour three sites in the Red Cross area of the district chosen as potential candidates for a possible consolidated elementary school.
The land being considered could be the centralized location for elementary students from the Leck Kill and Dalmatia areas.
Another option is consolidating the two schools on to land near the junior/senior high school in Mandata, but challenges with old sewage and drainage might remove that option from the table.
The board majority favors keeping certain grades together, but have not decided how to group the different grades. The consolidation would not include Trevorton Elementary School, which received extensive remodeling two years ago.
Bower noted that this project was starting from scratch, and that his company had a prior relationship with the district, which should move the process along more efficiently.