The Montour school board is expected to decide tonight whether to proceed with a small-scale renovation of its football stadium while waiting to resume work on its stalled large-scale renovation of the high school.

At the board's buildings and grounds committee meeting last Thursday, Scott Kaplan, of the construction management firm Burns & Scalo, laid out plans for a $3 million stadium renovation.

The work would include a FieldTurf surface, a six-lane all-weather track, new lights and light towers, a new shell and new seats for the bleachers, and a pre-fabricated building to serve as a press box.

Construction would start May 1 and be completed in time for the football season. Most materials could be bought through the state school purchasing consortium, although bids would have to be sought for the electrical work.

If approved, the project would be completed about the same time as the new architectural drawings for the high school renovation.

The construction manager also reported that Paul Apostolou, hired in December to take the project over from previous architect Victor Graves, would need about six months to complete new drawings. Once the drawings are approved, the project would have to be put out to bid. The work is expected to take 28 months to complete.

That means the high school renovation project, which began in fall 2007, would be completed in late 2011 or early 2012.

The school board has blamed Mr. Graves for the delays. Members have said his overly elaborate plans caused construction bids to come in about $5 million over budget last summer.

The board terminated its contract with Mr. Graves in December and filed a writ of summons against his firm, Graves & McLean, on Dec. 23. The writ essentially is a notice of intent to sue, but it includes no information about the arguments a suit would make.

The board also revealed last Thursday that its attempts to obtain Mr. Graves' drawings had failed. It had hoped to buy the drawings to get a jump start on the project; instead Mr. Apostolou will start from scratch.

The $44 million project was to add an administrative wing joining the grade nine and 10 building and the grade 11 and 12 building and rework learning space around a focus on technology education.

Demolition began in fall 2007. The auditorium and science labs have been gutted and remain closed behind temporary walls.

Plays and concerts have been held at David E. Williams Middle School, and students are doing computerized virtual labs instead of actual labs.