The City Council will vote on Thursday, Feb. 22 on the authorization of a pair of statements of interest to be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority seeking grant funding to replace the roofs of both the South and West Memorial Elementary Schools.
The statements of interest were approved by the School Committee last week and now await approval from the council before Superintendent of Schools Josh Vadala submits the documents to the MSBA. The city is seeking admission to the MSBA’s accelerated repair program to replace the “failing” roofs at both school buildings.
The deadline to submit the statements is March 1.
If the statements are approved by the council, they will be reviewed by the MSBA over the course of several months, with a decision likely to come toward the end of 2024. For example, in 2023, the committee and the council approved a statement-of-interest submission to the MSBA’s core program for Peabody Veterans Memorial High School, and a decision was handed down by the authority in December.
While that program offers communities a complete remodelling of a building as opposed to just accelerated repair, the timeline seems a helpful frame of reference as the city moves forward with the South and West.
Peabody is no stranger to working with the MSBA, as it has done so for the rebuild of both Higgins Middle School and Welch Elementary School. The Welch was initially accepted to the accelerated repair program, but the authority deemed its needs so great that it was shifted to the core program.
It’s not the first time the city has sought aid from the MSBA for the roofs at the South and the West.
The city filed statements of interest for both schools’ admission to the accelerated repair program in 2020, and then again in 2022. The MSBA halted the Accelerated Repair Program in 2023, leaving the city with little option other than to wait until 2024.
Mayor Ted Bettencourt at one point said he believed the South project would “extend the life” of the building.
It is not uncommon for districts to have to submit multiple statements of interest for the same project, as evidenced by both the Welch and the High School. City officials submitted statements of interest for the Welch five times between 2014 and 2019. The High School took even more attempts, with the city applying seven times in total.
