Easthampton board OKs April 2013 move-in for EHS

By Owen Boss

Staff Writer

EASTHAMPTON - After months of discussion, school officials unanimously approved moving students into the city's new high school in the spring of 2013 after deciding the switch won't interfere with their schoolwork and will allow workers ample time to demolish the current building.

At a meeting at White Brook Middle School Tuesday night, School Committee members met with project manager Mel Overmeyer and Michael W. Buehrle Sr., chairman of the city's High School Building Committee, to discuss the pros and cons of making the move during a one-week spring break vacation.

"We talked about this move a lot and we found that it won't disrupt the learning and if we pushed it back longer it would end up costing us more money," Buehrle said. "We had to go and get permission from the School Committee to do this because they are responsible for the kids' education."

The committee's primary concern, Superintendent Nancy Follansbee said, was that moving students into the 110,000-square-foot building in the middle of the school year would be too disruptive.

"The other proposal that was put out there by School Committee members and some members of the High School Building Committee was to wait and move students in September so it would be less disruptive to their school schedules," Follansbee said. "But after our meeting, we felt comfortable with the project manager's view that we could easily make the move during that one week in April."

The earlier move, Overmeyer said, could end up saving the city as much as $200,000 compared with the cost of waiting for the start of the following school year.

"The primary problem with waiting is that it elongates the construction period and pushes the finishing of all the site work into the fall of 2013, which would end up making it much more expensive," Overmeyer said. "That $200,000 isn't a figure that has been calculated, but one of the school committee members asked me to give a wild guess and that was it."

Follansbee said she has heard from some current high school students who want their class to be the first to receive their diplomas in the new building.

"We had also gotten a lot of feedback from the community about the desire among our high school students to graduate from the new high school," Follansbee said.

In May, city residents approved an $18.1 million debt exclusion override by a nearly 3-1 margin. The vote means that the city will raise property taxes over a 20-year period to build, equip and furnish the new high school on the same 8-acre parcel where the current 49-year-old high school currently sits.

Tuesday's decision means the current plan is as follows: The design development phase of the project, which began in July of this year, will last until February 2011, when the project will go to bid through the end of April.

After preparing the site over the summer, construction of the new building will begin in fall, 2011, and, according to Overmeyer, is expected to last until February 2013. Professional movers will move classroom equipment over spring break, which will allow for the demolition of the existing structure and completion of all site work by August 2013. In total, the project is expected to cost $43.7 million.

Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com