BALLSTON SPA — Voters in the Ballston Spa Central School District may be asked in December to approve up to $65 million in renovation and expansion projects in school buildings.

Superintendent of Schools Joseph Dragone said Wednesday the vast majority of the money would be spent to add a wing to the middle school as well as to renovate the 50-year-old building on Ballston Avenue.

“We anticipate the referendum will be in December and it will look for approval of an extensive project that would add space to the middle school, which is very undersized,” Dragone said. “The project would add a 106,000-square-foot wing on the front of the building and would add a new auditorium and new gymnasium.”

According to preliminary drawings presented to the Board of Education, the addition would include 12 classrooms, a library classroom and large group instruction room as well as two science labs, two computer labs, new locker rooms, a fitness area and team rooms.

Facilities that would be shared with the high school include the auditorium, gym, orchestra room, music practice rooms and an art room.

“It struck me when I toured the middle school how undersized it is,” Dragone said.

The new superintendent was hired earlier this summer and had his first day on the job on Aug. 4.

He is a former assistant superintendent of the Albany City School District.

District spokesman Stuart Williams said the middle school was constructed as a high school in the late 1950s.

“The first class to graduate from that building was in 1958,” he said. “When the new high school was built 10 years ago, the old building became the middle school without much updating.”

Other projects included in the anticipated referendum would make improvements at the Wood Road and Malta Avenue elementary schools.

More formal plans will be discussed by the school board in the next several months.

The tentative plans include construction of new athletic fields in front of the middle school and the demolition of a house purchased by the district three years ago.

Williams said the fate of the house had not been determined when it was purchased, but the land was seen as a valuable asset for future expansion.

Dragone said he’s excited to be in Ballston Spa for his first job as head of a school district.

“My focus is on academic achievement and creating a program to meet the needs of the students,” he said. “I think the realignment of the K through 5 program and the start of a new literacy series in the elementary schools are great changes for the district.”

This fall marks the first time the district will have full-day kindergarten classes. Another change in the elementary format is housing students from kindergarten through fifth grade in the same school buildings rather than switching buildings as they moved from kindergarten through primary and then secondary elementary grades.

Williams said the kindergarten class is expected to have about 330 students this year, up from the last couple of years when numbers dipped below 300.

“I’m not sure if it was last year or two years ago, but the number was 260,” he said.

Dragone said expectations of students are high, and when they graduate they need to have technical skills as well as the ability to collaborate and communicate.

“I look at it from the end backward,” Dragone said. “When our students leave us, they need to have academic success and interpersonal skills,” he said. “There’s no excuse for us not to do whatever the children need.”

He said keeping the children and the staff in the district safe is also a responsibility of the district.

A new security system has been installed in each of the buildings and visitors will have to show photo identification and be let into the building after a screening.

“Every door will be locked and photo IDs will be scanned through a system before anyone is let in,” Williams said. “There will also be a camera in the hallway and a person on the door, which is something new this year.”

Dragone said families want to know their children are safe. He said school shootings have occurred in rural and suburban communities around the country and no community can ignore the potential.

“No community can be exempt from a tragedy. We want to prevent anything from happening,” he said.