The city is officially moving forward with a proposal to construct a new high school, submitting a statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) to secure aid in construction costs for the second year in a row. The submission was made on Friday.
Peabody’s application to the MSBA’s core program to secure grant funds to reconstruct Veterans Memorial High School and the Center Elementary School was denied last year, but officials are seemingly undeterred as they press forward once again. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Josh Vadala said he and School Committee member Beverley Griffin Dunne began the process of preparing a statement in January and submitted it Friday.
“I’m very happy with the way it came out. We had started early in January and really took the time to look at it and bounce ideas off each other so it really was a joint process,” Vadala said. “It was important to start early and really put some extra work into the submission. My fingers are crossed, I hope this is our year.
The deteriorating condition of the high school, built in 1970, is widely known.
The deficiencies include roof leaks (the roof was partially replaced in 2018), inadequate electrical and HVAC systems that result in some rooms not having heat and some rooms overheating, questionable water and air quality, and substandard bathrooms, some of which are not handicap accessible and lack running water. Additionally, the electrical system is plagued by thrown circuit breakers. Other substandard conditions include rodent infestations, module classrooms that lack running water or bathrooms, and a lack of storage space.
Dunne said the school’s accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) continues to be under “warning status” due to the building’s age and poor condition.
“They recognize that the building is inadequate and that it just isn’t able to provide what the students really need for current times,” Dunne said.
Peabody’s 2023 application omits a request for funding to construct a new Center Elementary School. Vadala said that decision was driven by communication from the MSBA that it would not support applications for multiple schools per district in part due to the rising construction costs.
While Vadala said it was a “difficult decision” to omit Center from the application, officials ultimately moved forward with a request for a new high school because of its status as the district’s largest school.
At some point the MSBA had communicated to districts that they would be accepting one project per district because of escalating costs of construction,” said Vadala. “In the past, districts had gotten multiple schools in the program. We felt as if they are only going to allow one school in, we should really prioritize … the school that every Peabody student can go to.”
The biggest difference between the application the city submitted last year and the one finalized this week is an added emphasis on the state of the district’s career and technical education programs, which Vadala said cannot be expanded given the current state of the building.
Among the additions school officials are hoping to make are a restaurant and a salon, which he said a new school could be designed around.
“There are also a number of programs we don’t have that we would like to expand but we don’t have the facility to do it,” said Vadala.
Dunne said the costs will be covered by MSBA.
“Interaction with the community is also important to MSBA,” she said. “Because that is how the students really learn a trade and the way the high school is set up right now security and entrance wise, we can’t have the public coming in and out of the building for those services Josh mentioned.”
Peabody will have to wait to hear the MSBA’s final determination. A decision on the application is not expected until November or December as the agency reviews applications from across the state.
“My fingers are crossed, I hope this is our year,” Vadala said.
Despite the recent rejection, Peabody has succeeded in getting state aid for the construction of school buildings in the past — with the MSBA helping fund an ongoing major renovation at the Welch School and a new Higgins Middle School a few years ago. Vadala and Dunne both said they do not expect the Welch project, which Vadala said is set to finish next summer, to have any impact on the application for a new high school.
“We wouldn’t really start the process until the summer with the eligibility phase and feasibility phase when the Welch program will be offline,” Vadala said. “I don’t think it will affect our ability to get in, as the Welch project funding has already been secured by the time we start the project so there wouldn’t be any overlap in terms of funding.”
Dunne, who is the current chair of the Welch School Building Committee, previously served as the chair of the Higgins School Building Committee, said she would love to be involved in the new high school project should it be invited into the MSBA core program.
“I would love to do that, I really would but that’s all up to Mayor Bettencourt (chair of the School Committee),” she said.
