Middle School Project Moves Slowly Forward

The school year for may be coming to a close, but the work of the School Committee doesn’t take a vacation.

Last night’s meeting at showed that there still a great deal of work to be done on forthcoming projects with the Building Committee providing the latest update on the redevelopment for the project and the appointment of a project manager.

According to the school committee, negotiations have begun with Ai3 but they still need approval of their appointment by the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) which is expected to be granted later this week.

“As of today, we are still awaiting formal approval from the MBSA of our Project Manager, but we anticipate that it will be forthcoming,” said Raymond Estes, Chair of School Building Committee. “The MBSA is driving this bus quite a bit, it’s a good thing for us because they have an end result in mind and that is for the Model School program to be efficient and cost effective.”

While the Building Committee is still waiting to hear from MBSA, the committee said that there will be a traffic study starting today, June 7  and environmental studies to be carried out when the students leave for the summer vacation.

Preliminary space summary figures for the school have been submitted and the committee is expecting to hear from the MBSA later this week with their initial thoughts.

“As soon as we know how big a school we are going to build,” said Estes. “What rooms are going to go into that school to accommodate the educational program we hope to deliver, we’ll be able to move forward with the rest of the schematic design through the summer.”

The proposal submitted to the MSBA includes 36 general classrooms, nine science rooms, a distance learning center and the inclusion of an auditorium or theater.

The issues of space are critical to the project as the meeting also included a presentation of projected enrollment figures for September for all public schools in the town, with student numbers expected to rise at Middle and High School level.

The Long Range Planning Committee also gave the latest update on the Following a meeting with town project engineer Roger Fernades last week, the committee feels that the establishment of a sub-committee would help in ensuring that the project moves forward in the correct fashion, with membership to be determined at a later date.

The structural beam issues at Middle School are to be addressed in the summer with CMJ Services appointed to carry out the necessary repairs, following a successful bid and approved references.