The School Committee met last Tuesday for the last time before the year comes to a close and discussed the first update on the Center Elementary School.
Extensive renovations and repairs have already been completed in the project that is looking at a completion date sometime this August in order to get students and teachers back in the building.
Dr. Herb Levine presented to the committee the work that has already been done to the building as well as what is scheduled for completion.
One significant objective that has been achieved throughout the past few months is the remediation of all pipes in the school. According to Dr. Levine, the pipes had been causing “significant mold problems in the closet and the cafeteria,” so ensuring its functionality was of vital importance to the project.
Other repairs include flooring throughout the building, replaced steam straps, fixed steam leaks, sections of the roof patched, replacement of the bathroom partitions, and the completion of the playground.
Superintendent Dr. Josh Vadala highlighted the work that’s been done with the playground, especially as the Center School welcomes an early-childhood program that has already been utilizing the new play area.
“That is something that the kids are all enjoying, they’re using it everyday,” Dr. Vadala said. “Recently we were able to make that program ADA compliant. … There’s a student who’s wheelchair bound and now she can navigate the entire playground.”
Further improvements Dr. Levine hopes to incorporate into the building renovations include installing LED lights throughout the entire building. The decision would end up saving money, as it is cheaper to fully replace the current outdated lights with LEDs rather than find replacement parts for what is missing.
“Everytime I talk to you and you report about things that are going on, you identify new areas where we can find improvement, like the LED lighting, which is going to make a dramatic difference for students and staff when they return to the building,” Committee member Jarod Hochman said to Dr. Levine.
Dr. Vadala informed the committee that surveys were sent out yesterday to families of the Center School asking if they plan on returning to the building or if they’d prefer to stay in the school their children were moved to.
There will also be a new update posted to the school’s website once there is a comprehensive report on what has been completed
Another item presented at this meeting was the announcement that the district has been accepted into the Massachusetts School Building Association’s (MSBA) accelerated repair program for new roofs at the West Elementary School and South Elementary School.
The committee voted unanimously to send a request to the city council for $75,000 in funding for a feasibility study of the potential repairs or replacements of the roofs at the two schools.
Committee member Hochman stressed that the Peabody school district has a lot of aging buildings, so the work that’s being done to establish a strong relationship with the MSBA, especially chair of the School Building Committee Beverly Griffin Dunne, will have a positive impact on the city that will last years.
