Wish list for Wentworth takes shape

Committee submit final recommendations for the design of a new school in Scarborough.

SCARBOROUGH — With five months to go until an anticipated multi-million-dollar bond vote, the Scarborough school board has begun to lay ground on a new Benjamin F. Wentworth Intermediate School by approving a wish list of design elements.

Four sub-groups of the 41-person Wentworth Building Committee – which have met regularly since January to thrash out possibilities – presented their final recommendations to town councilors June 1, and to the school board June 2.

“None of this is consultant-driven,” said Building Committee Chairman Paul Koziell. “I did not want outsiders coming in and telling us how to build our school. I wanted it to be community-driven, and that is a goal that’s been accomplished.”

The appearance before the Town Council was largely advisory. Although it will set the bottom line on any eventual bond, the school board has jurisdiction on the specifics. As such, it voted unanimously to accept the building sub-committee proposals for athletics and activities, library services and technology, food services and  “green” construction, as well as the district-wide services housed at Wentworth.

Although a bond went to voters as recently as 2006, when a $38.5 million reconstruction project at Wentworth shared ballot space with $16.5 million in middle school renovations, Koziell says his group purposefully chose now to reuse the former design.

“We didn’t want to just pick an old plan up off a shelf and do this,” he said, pursing his lips and making an action, as if to blow dust off a dated document.

After his presentation to the school board, Koziell said no price tag has been set for the new building. Nevertheless, he noted the final tally should come in below the 2006 proposal, which 61 percent of residents rejected. The middle school also went down that year, with a 58.2 percent no vote.

In post-vote armchair politicking, many town officials now look back and say citizens were simply overwhelmed by two large school bonds on the same ballot. Of course, Scarborough voters have historically held a firm grip on their purse strings. At the time of the 2006 school bonds, they had recently refused to take out loans for a new library and a senior center.

Still, there seems little doubt the council will give Wentworth another go, now that it’s fully decoupled from any other construction project.

“If there is anything this council can do, please feel free to come right out and ask us for any way we might be able to move this effort forward,” Councilor Michael Wood told Koziell at the June 1 meeting.

“This council has been unanimous in its support of a new Wentworth,” he added. “So, I think you should take care of that rare unanimity.”

According to Wentworth Principal Anne-Mayre Dexter, deficiencies at the school – opened in 1962 as a junior high – include the presence of asbestos and mold, a lack of sprinklers, and high CO2 levels due to poor ventilation in the 24 portable units brought on site over the years to serve the 770-student enrollment.

On top of that, the main building, built for pre-teens, is not size-appropriate for its current population – children in Grades 3-5. The eight bathroom stalls (four, each, for boys and girls) are a long trek on little legs from some corners of the school.

However, while councilors seem firmly in favor of a new intermediate school, school board members were quick to point out that what they’ve approved thus far may not make it into the final plan that will goes before voters.

“These are recommendations that have been researched for months and months and months,” said school board member Aymie Hardesty. “But they’re not set in stone. They’re things that we would like to do, depending on costs.”

“I think referring to these recommendations as building blocks is the best analogy,” said Koziell. “The next step will be for an architect to take all the pieces and see how they go together. Certain things are going to go well together, and certain things won’t.”

The “cornerstones” of the committee’s wish list, says Koziell, are these: Scarborough should build a new intermediate school rather than renovate the existing one; any new building should go up on the same campus where the existing school is located; and, it should be built roughly where the playgrounds are located today.

What the school board approved last week were the “building blocks,” which will be stacked on top of that foundation.

“I will tell you candidly that not all of these building blocks are going to get into the new school,” he said. “When we do our due diligence, when we spec out costs, there are parts that aren’t going to make it. That’s part of the process.”

The steering committee, chaired by Koziell, has promised 2,000 square feet inside any new intermediate school for Scarborough Community Services, which manages before- and after-school programs, as well as summer camps.

Koziell said the space would be dedicated to Community Services for its “independent use.” That prompted a question from school board member John Cole, who asked if a “bumping process” should be put in place, should the school department ever outgrow the new building.

“Long term, if the school is busting at the seams, that is something that would have to be addressed,” said Koziell.

Because the Wentworth kitchen is used to prepare meals for students across Scarborough in Grades K-5, any new school would have the same size, storage capacity and refrigeration space. However, with the exception of the dishwasher, all existing kitchen equipment can be transferred into the new facility.

The new building is expected to have two nutrition offices, with a conference room to be shared with other school groups. A district-wide medical testing office would be located near the front entrance. It’s design would “mimic a small physician’s office.”

Among the library recommendations are “inviting reading areas,” movable bookcases, an area for 25-30 computers, small work rooms and space to exhibit student work, as well as the usual circulation desk.

Technology in the new school will be “robust,” featuring high-speed Internet in both fiber-optic and wireless varieties, as well as a video-conferencing system and voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP).

Classrooms will be equipped with electronic “smart boards” and wireless audio systems to amplify spoken instruction.

“We need an infrastructure that will support the school for many, many years to come,” said technology sub-committee chairman Robert Wiley.

Among the athletic highlights approved by the school board:

• A gymnasium on par with the one at the high school (104 feet by 100feet), with a maple floor for three basketball courts and two volleyball courts, and a synthetic floor in the health and fitness area, as well as bleacher seating for 400;
• A climbing wall and two scoreboards;
• An office for two physical education teachers with full view and access to the gym;
• A performance stage joining the gym to the cafeteria, with “solid-closure walls” on each end, such that the stage can be viewed from either side;
• A pole-vault pit and high jump area in the cafeteria, featuring an electronic hoist system to suspend mats over lunch-room tables, when not in use;
• An outside storage area roughly the size of a two-car garage, for sports equipment; and
• A combination soccer/baseball field and a playground, to be designed with input from students and parents.

Regarding the pole-vault pit, school board Chairman Christopher Brownsey admitted, “That’s not normally something you’d find in a Grade 3-5 school, but it’s there today and there isn’t another home [for it].”

“To put a pole-vault pit into either one of our gymnasiums at the high school would be enormously expensive,” said school board member Jacquelyn Perry, who chairs the building committee’s athletics sub-group.

Lastly, the new school, if approved by voters, will adhere to “green” building standards set by the Northeast Collaborative for High-Performing Schools, including the use of “daylight harvesting” to naturally light interior sections of the structure, which will be built on an east-west axis, to capture the maximum amount of sun.

Plans call for a geo-thermal heating and cooling system and solar hot water heaters, as well as a radiant-heating system built into concrete floors. The building will be designed to keep sound from mechanical systems below 45 decibels, which includes noise from a natural gas-powered emergency generator. Long-term planning calls for tying into on-site power generation at the nearby town office, as called for in the municipal energy plan recently adopted by the Town Council.

“Even though there’s a higher up-front cost in green construction, overall, the long-term savings are immense, especially in a building you want to keep for 50 years,” said Christine Massengill, chairwoman of the green building subcommittee. 

The green committee also advised maximizing open space around the school, which, it said, should include a garden to be used as both an educational tool and to grow food for use in the school cafeteria.

A CLOSER LOOK: The full list of building recommendations, as well as future meetings list and videos promoting the concept of rebuilding Wentworth, can be found on the building committees new website: www.newwentworth.com.