The Falconer Central School Board of Education is pictured at its meeting Tuesday. Superintendent Stephen Penhollow said the current phase of its ongoing construction project has been completed. P-J photo by Jordan W. Patterson

FALCONER — With ongoing construction coming to an end, Falconer Central School officials are shifting focus to the next phase.

Site work and roof work for Phase 1 of a $22.9 million capital construction project within the school district is “substantially complete,” said Brent Aggett, Falconer business manager, during a Board of Education meeting Tuesday.

The project was approved in 2017 by district voters and is divided into three phases and among various focus areas throughout the three Falconer schools.

The all-weather sports complex was completed as a portion of Phase 1 of the current project. Aggett said cost reports for the first phase can be submitted to the state Education Department now that work is completed.

While additional phases for the 2017 project continue, Superintendent Stephen Penhollow updated the board on a future Capital Outlay Project that will further address school security. Included in the ongoing projects are infrastructure updates to improve security systems such as upgrading cameras, wiring and district servers.

The outlay project will continue the district’s effort to modernize security systems, which has been present in many of the district’s recent projects.

“So, what I’ve tried do is use as many sources as humanly possible to get a project done all within a year,” Penhollow said of using multiple projects to address security concerns.

However, the upcoming project will likely not begin until late April or early May as the plans are currently under review by SED, Penhollow said. He added that the review process can take up to 14 weeks.

As far as the future project, he said, “It will be mainly replacing old cameras as well as putting them in areas we have found to be deficient as far as high-traffic areas that maybe we didn’t have coverage in before. The advantage that we have is the installer is already on site.”

In other news, middle school Principal Terry English said the national anti-bullying program, “Sweethearts and Heroes” will be returning to the district this week.

Last year’s program featured a presentation by former MMA fighter and Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Tom Murphy, among other presenters. The Sweethearts & Heroes anti-bullying program was co-founded by Murphy and Jason Spector, an educator and coach in Glens Falls.

“Last year, they came to talk about bullying with the main focus being on bystanders and what to do. This year they’ll talk about cyber bullying and internet safety,” English said.