School committee drafts a 10-year improvement plan

For the first time, the Dartmouth Public Schools School Committee has developed a 10-year improvement plan, which, if accepted, would include replacing the high school’s roof, modernizing playgrounds and potentially constructing a new school building.

To move forward with the projects, the School Committee must first accept the proposals then present them at Town Meeting in June to receive funding.

At a School Committee meeting on Monday, Jan. 6, Assistant Superintendent James Kiely presented a draft of the plan.

Replacing the high school’s roof system would cost $6 million, Kiely said. To complete this project, the School Committee would submit a statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority, which partners with communities to support the design and construction of public school facilities. If the organization accepts Dartmouth into its accelerated repair program, it would pay for about 50% of the project, Kiely said.

Security upgrades, including improvements at building entrances, would cost approximately $285,000.

Replacing fire alarms and detection systems at the Potter and DeMello elementary schools would cost $550,000.

The plan would also include a $250,000 funding request to replace technology hardware, which is a critical project for the district so teachers can continue to support students on a one-to-one basis and have the essential instructional technology in classrooms, Kiely said.

The proposed plan also includes $567,000 to repair the high school’s outdoor track. While the track has recently received patch jobs, Kiely said this is only a short-term solution.

Several projects, including modernizing playgrounds, replacing flooring that contains asbestos and repairing and replacing heating, ventilation and air condition systems are underway. The School Committee is looking to continue these projects. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars would go to modernizing playgrounds while $200,000 would be used to replace flooring and $300,000 to heating, ventilation and air conditioning repairs.

Repairing the infrastructure around Memorial Stadium is also included in the proposed plan.

While the field was recently renovated, the stadium itself is “poor [and] in some cases literally crumbling to the point that it is a safety concern,” Kiely said.

Looking into the second year of the 10-year plan, the plan includes proposals to construct one, potentially two, new school buildings.

The first steps in this project would likely include a meeting with the Massachusetts School Building Authority, which would assess the district’s six buildings to determine the best course of action, such as which building could be replaced.

“We have a building that was built in 1922 that’s still in operation,” Kiely said, referring to Cushman Elementary School. “I would imagine that part of any discussion with MSBA will be that the use of that building long term is probably not in the show of cards.”

He added that the district will need to build a new school eventually and should construct it now before the town ends up working on three projects at the same time, which he said would be “unfortunate and short-sighted.”

“The number one thing to remember is the longer we wait to do these projects, the more it’s going to cost,” he said.

Superintendent June Saba-Maguire said that the district was in an “exciting place,” citing the potential for the 10-year plan to lead Dartmouth into the next century.