Bond 2024

This summer, the Patchogue-Medford School District began work approved by our 2024 Bond Referendum. One of the first projects to launch the athletic facilities related upgrade projects. The first of these was the construction of the new multi-purpose athletic field. While there is still more work ahead, we are excited to share that we have made tremendous progress on the field. The new turf field has already been installed along with the new lighting and walkways. Over the next few months, we will complete the fencing and netting and begin the demolition of the existing bleachers at Raider Stadium. The new LED video scoreboards and new grandstand with press box will be installed in the spring, as will the new elevated grandstand on the multi-purpose field. We’ve also had the new scoreboards in the gym’s installed and expect to have them operational in time for the winter sports season.

The next portions of our bond project will be to embark upon our theatrical lighting and sound upgrades in secondary schools along with the HVAC upgrades that will introduce new air quality and heating/cooling equipment into all of our classrooms, gymnasiums, and cafeterias. We expect approval for these projects by November. We will share more details of the exciting developments in the upcoming months!

The community’s approval of the May 2024 bond referendum is enabling the District to:

• bring state-of-the-art climate control technology into all of our classrooms, gymnasiums, and cafeterias in our schools
• significantly upgrade our high school athletic facilities
• transform the music and theater sound and lighting systems at our middle schools and high school to professional grade.

Over the past 10 months, the district’s architects and engineers have been meeting with district administration and other district personnel to finalize plans being developed for submission to the New York State Department of Education for approval. There has been a change from the original plans for the athletic fields. We had envisioned a double-sided press box serving both the existing stadium field and the new multi-purpose turf field to be constructed. However, the positioning of the fields in relation to each other does not permit this. The revised plans call for a new, state-of-the-art, fully enclosed press box to be built for the stadium field. An elevated, three-sided press box will be constructed for the new turf field.

Using what is called a third party expediter, the district is hoping to fast-track approvals so that projects can go out to bid, contracts can be awarded, and work can commence. As always, there are factors outside the control of the district that will play a role in how fast work can get done. Even with an expediter, the state’s approval of plans can be delayed for an assortment of reasons. Supply chain issues are still a factor in the construction industry, and they may well be exacerbated by recent tariff changes introduced by the federal government.

As we have indicated on numerous occasions, the scheduling of work must be done so as not to interrupt student class time or other activities normally scheduled at our schools. This is why the great majority of the work needs to be done over the summer, during holiday breaks, and other times students are not in our schools. Having noted all this, assuming all goes as planned, we anticipate being able to commence work on the new turf field at the high school in June/July 2025 and start the installation of new sound and lighting assets at our secondary schools in July/August 2025.

The biggest and most involved project is the installation of the heating/cooling unit ventilators and related equipment in all our schools. This work is broken down into four phases, with Bay Elementary School and South Ocean Middle School in Phase 1. The reasoning for these two schools coming on board first is that the capital project work will be started at Bay Elementary School in June, and it makes sense to do the heating/cooling installations at the same time. In a similar vein, South Ocean Middle School already had new unit ventilators installed for the heating component as part of the 2019-20 interfund transfer, so it makes sense to complete work at South Ocean by installing the remaining cooling elements during this first phase.

Phases of the HVAC upgrades:

• Phase 1: Bay Elementary and South Ocean Middle School.
• Phase 2: Eagle and Tremont elementary schools, with anticipated completion in time for the 2026-2027 school year.
• Phase 3: Barton, Canaan, Medford, and River elementary schools. The projected completion date for these schools is September 2027.
• Phase 4: Secondary schools, with anticipated completion dates of September 2028 for the middle schools (Phase 4A) and December 2028 (Phase 4B) for the high school.

This summer, we anticipate work commencing on the new high school multi-purpose turf field, lighting and sound installations at our secondary schools, and HVAC work at Bay Elementary School. We will keep the community informed of progress at each stage of these projects.

When the Patchogue-Medford School District community approved our bond referendum last May, it was done with the confidence that it would enable the District to bring state-of-the-art climate control technology into all of our classrooms, gymnasiums, and cafeterias in our schools; significantly upgrade our high school athletic facilities; and transform the music and theater sound and lighting systems at our middle schools and high school to professional grade. While we all would like to see work begin tomorrow, the implementation of bond projects is contingent on several factors not entirely in the control of the District. For example, no work can commence before architectural and engineering plans are approved by the New York State Education Department (NYSED). Current experience indicates NYSED’s approval turnaround time can be upwards of 210 days. Following NYSED approval, bids go out and contracts are awarded. However, supply chain issues are still a factor in the construction industry, and depending on the availability of materials needed for our projects, there may be delays in the start dates of some projects. Additionally, work must be done so as not to interrupt student class time or other activities normally scheduled at our schools. This is why the majority of the work needs to be done over the summer, during holiday breaks, and other times students are not in our schools. Having noted all this, assuming all goes as planned, we anticipate being able to commence work on the new turf field at the high school and start the installation of new sound and lighting assets at our secondary schools in July 2025. We anticipate completion of all this work in November 2025.

The big project is the installation of the heating/cooling unit ventilators and related equipment in all our schools. We have broken this down into four phases, with Bay Elementary School and South Ocean Middle School in Phase 1. The reasoning for these two schools coming on board first was that the capital project work will be started at Bay Elementary School in June, and it makes sense to do the heating/cooling installations at the same time. In a similar vein, South Ocean Middle School recently had new unit ventilators installed for the heating component, so it makes sense to complete work at that building by installing the cooling elements during this first phase.

• Phase 1 will include Bay Elementary and South Ocean Middle School. 
• Phase 2 will include Eagle and Tremont elementary schools, with an anticipated start date of January 2026 and completion in time for the 2026-2027 school year.
• Phase 3 includes Canaan, Medford, Barton, and River elementary schools. The projected start/completion dates for these schools is January 2027/ September 2027.
• Phase 4 includes our secondary schools, with anticipated start/completion dates of January 2028/September 2028 for the middle schools and January 2028/December 2028 for the high school.