The design plans for Weston Elementary School are still being reviewed by the Division of the State Architect.

At Monday’s Ripon Unified school board meeting, Scott Gaudineer, principal of Program Management Integration, also noted that project is currently under review with the state Department of Education.

“(This review) takes a long time but that’s not unexpected,” he said. “There’s no rubberstamping.”

Besides the construction – Weston, as part of voter-approved Measure G, will get two separate classroom wings and new gymnasium / multi-purpose facility – the plan calls for the renovation of the existing multi-purpose room to accommodate many of the support staff.

“We had to submit two applications to DSA,” said “Gaudineer, pointing out that the renovation was done separately.

He added: “The multi-purpose room renovation is smaller (than the new construction) and has already been received by DSA.”

That leaves DSA structural to review plans for the classroom wings and gym.

DSA is the state oversight of all school construction for K-12 schools and was created from the “Field Act.” This piece of legislature was the result of 1933 Long Beach earthquake in which nearly 230 school were destroyed.

DSA reviews plans in three major areas – structural safety, accessibility, and fire / life safety – and examines construction documents while possibly making comments addressed to the design team.

In addition, PMI is looking to see if RUSD might be eligible for new construction state funding.

The district may have to wait a bit as a large number of applications for modernization and new construction by other school districts had been received but not processed by the Office of Public School Construction, according to Gaudineer.

He’s expecting final approval from DSA in May and the bidding to take place soon after.

Reconstruction of Weston is still targeted for this summer with completion expected to be on time for the beginning of the 2015-16 school year, Gaudineer said.