Bald Eagle Area is getting new $3.3 million weightlifting, forestry facilities. What to know
The Bald Eagle Area School District is preparing to break ground on its $3.3 million forestry building project before classes resume at the end of the month.
The board accepted $2,744,338 worth of construction bids at its Aug. 7 meeting. The project will have three key parts and is expected to be fully completed by the start of the 2025 school year, director of secondary education and high school principal Jack Tobias said. Superintendent Christopher Santini said after new equipment, furnishings and finishing touches, the project will come in at about $3.3 million.
The project will include:
A new forestry building built on site with a separate teaching classroom, two welding stations and additional space for the agriculture mechanics tractor.
A new weight room built in the former forestry building with new machines, a turf area for agility drills, medicine ball stations and ten power racks.
The former weight room converted into offices for special education administrators.
To minimize the impact on students, construction will start on the new forestry building first, after which the forestry program will move into the new building and construction will start on the new weight room.
In the final step, the former weight room will transition to special education offices, allowing district administrators to move out of the mobile trailers they are currently using as offices behind the administrative building.
Tobias said the project is needed to support the growing interests and needs of students and the district. The high school’s intro to weightlifting class has grown from 50 to 150 students in the past four years, he said.
“It’s built a lot of confidence with kids that normally wouldn’t go to the weight room,” Tobias said.
With a smaller high school like Bald Eagle Area, Santini said students are often involved in many different sports and activities, making the weight room upgrades applicable for all students.
“We have a large proportion of our kids that are in a sport or in multiple sports,” Santini said. “So you’re talking about targeting a lot of your student population, and then you have those kids who maybe aren’t in a sport, but they get into fitness, they get into lifting, they get into working out, based on taking this class.”
Santini also said it was important for the forestry building to stay up to date as it helps to supply 90% of the school’s wood for woodshop classes. Having these programs are costly, Santini said, but worth it for the lifelong skills they teach students.
“Anytime you have a career and technical program, they cost money because you have specialized equipment,” Santini said. “You’re preparing kids for a career, and trying to do something that is state of the art isn’t cheap unfortunately, but I think our kids deserve it.”
The first day of school for BEA students is Aug. 27.
