Mayor Ted Bettencourt announced last Wednesday morning that Peabody Veterans Memorial High School had been selected to participate in the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s funding program, meaning the city will be home to a newly renovated high school in “just a few years,” Bettencourt said.
“The board has voted the Peabody Veterans Memorial High School into the eligibility period,” state Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg said in a press release. “The MSBA will work collaboratively with local officials to ensure the best outcome for the district’s students.”
A major renovation of the high school, if not construction of an entirely new building, has been a top priority for city officials dating back years. This year marks the seventh time the city has applied to the program. The MSBA received letters of interest from 63 different districts, and the city was finally one of the 19 accepted.
“This is the first time that they came in and took a tour,” Superintendent of Schools Josh Vadala said. “When they scheduled it and were coming we said ‘this is a good sign, they’re serious enough about an application that they want to come and visit,’ and when they came, they said yes.”
The MSBA will primarily assist by reimbursing 60% of the project’s cost.
Bettencourt revealed that the initial plan is to build an entirely new academic building. However, the city will look at rehabilitating some of the existing structures in place, such as the auditorium and fieldhouse. Bettencourt said in an ideal world, the high school would serve as more than an 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. learning environment, providing opportunities for additional programming. One type of programming the city hopes to improve with these modernizations is career and technical education (CTE) opportunities.
“By creating a new facility, we look forward to some of our very strong programs like cosmetology and culinary where we could have an in-house salon, the leather city cafe, and the Tanner confectionery,” Veterans Memorial Principal Brooke Randall said. “Aspiring to have a structure where we have outward-facing CTE programming where we could bring the community in so it’s primarily a structure and a facility that benefits our grade 9-12 students on a day-to-day basis, but really has a positive impact in the community as a whole.”
The high school’s current building has been in use since 1971. School Committee member Beverley Griffin Dunne explained why she and her peers believe the school is in need of an upgrade.
“It isn’t a situation where we could go buy new equipment for the science labs or CTE, that building won’t support it,” Griffin Dunne said. “The electrical system won’t support it. The heat, the plumbing, those systems are all breaking down to the point where repairs just aren’t enough anymore.”
Vadala explained that the school will now be in the MSBA’s eligibility phase for the next six-nine months, and the MSBA will then vote to accept it into the next stage, known as feasibility. He described the feasibility stage as a critical point in which the project actually gets underway.
“We’ll hire a project manager, and during that time we’ll figure out where the site is going to be, how it’s going to be, what the project entails,” Vadala said.
Construction is expected to begin approximately three years from now, and Bettencourt is optimistic that the new school can open its doors to students in five to six years. However, he noted it is still too early in the process to determine a cost estimate.
“We’re very grateful that we now have this opportunity to do something very important for our community, very special for our community, and I’m very excited about what lays ahead,” Bettencourt said.
