Members of the Rensselaer City School District Community:

We would like to update you on the beginning of our project, but first we need to make you aware of a March calendar change.  You should already know that there is no school for students on 3/13 and that 3/23 is a scheduled early release day based on our adopted 2025-26 calendar.  We will also have an early release day on 3/16 so that we can complete the training that we were unable to hold due to the snow day on 1/26.  This is an important safety preparation training in coordination with our Questar III team and our local first responders.  Thank you for your flexibility and understanding.

You may have noticed that our project to replace the roof and siding has begun.  This spring, the work will be concentrated in the back of the building.  Our tennis court is being used as a staging area.  You can see safety railings installed along the rooftop.

This project is scheduled to last through the summer of 2027.  We worked with the architects and contractors to try and minimize the inevitable disruption to our learning environment and operations.  With that said, we will have several notable hurdles along the way.

First - We will be moving our VRES dismissal to the front bus loop instead of behind the building.  Please do not park in that bus loop before or during dismissal. 

Second -  We will still be able to run our special education extended school year program and our JrSr High credit recovery program, but we will not have enough space to offer our VRES enrichment program in the summer of 2026.  That would not allow our maintenance team to get our building ready for the 2026-27 school year.

Third - We will need to vacate our middle school wing to start the 2026-27 school year.  This will allow for construction to continue on that part of the building during the fall of 2026.  Our team has put together a plan that utilizes the space in the rest of the building as efficiently as we can to make this happen.  With that said, we still don’t have quite enough room to get it all done here, so we are still working with our 7th grade team to finalize a plan for those students to have a designated team space at Doane Stuart.  Our 7th graders will begin and end the day with specials here at our building and will be transported to Doane for the instructional block and lunch.  More details will be provided to that grade level as they are finalized.

Fourth - As the middle school wing construction is wrapped up, portions of the high school wing will be relocated into that space to allow for construction to continue.  This will require some dedicated time for our staff, so when we understand that timeline better, we will schedule early release days to facilitate the move.

We know that this will certainly inspire many questions. Our student body is on the forefront of those questions with an article and interview in our monthly Ramblurr.  We will also be posting updates on our Capital Project page.  As questions come in, we will develop a Q&A page about the progress and impacts of the project.

We thank the community for supporting the investment in protecting our building.  We thank everyone for being flexible and patient throughout the process.

Joe