Five School Repairs and Upgrades to Pay Attention To

Monday's school committee meeting included a lot of updates about pending changes to school facilities. Below follow five changes you may want to pay attention to.

• The at should be installed in time for the town’s Sept. 11 commemoration events, but just barely. Mary Delai, the district’s director of finances and operations, said that work on the wall could begin this week and be completed no later than Sept. 9. Should it not be ready in time, though, Superintendent John Doherty said the town will make arrangements to hang a large American flag where the wall should be.
• Delai expects the at to be completed by Sept. 12, she said Monday. “We’ve been monitoring the progress and it’s in great shape,” she said.
• That project will also include a new feature: replacement roof windows. DeLai said that the project’s original bid did not include replacement of the roof windows, but it made sense to have the crew currently working on the roof replace the windows while they were at it. The additional feature, she said, falls within the project’s original budget. The roof replacement is presently expected to cost $250,000 less than originally predicted, she said, and the window replacement is expected to cost $132,000.
• Work on window replacements at should begin in October, Delai said. During the eight-week construction period, crews will work on three classrooms at a time and the students will be moved to temporary spaces, including two temporary classrooms that will be constructed in the gymnasium. Gym classes, she said, will be held at the Burbank YMCA.
• The district may use pending necessary upgrades to Killam Elementary School as an opportunity to make other, less-pressing improvements, Delai said. The school currently does not meet handicapped accessibility standards, and bringing the school in line with those standards is expected to cost $1.8 million, but the school could also use other improvements, including a renovation of its main office. The total cost of the project, Delai said, could be up to $4 million.