Wentworth project – ‘it’s real’

Details emerge of $39.1M intermediate school rebuild

SCARBOROUGH — At a special open house held in the “wood-floor gym” of Wentworth Intermediate School last Friday, Principal Ann-Mayre Dexter worked the room, greeting parents, staffers and children alike with a beaming smile.

Last November, 63.3 percent of Scarborough voters said yes to borrowing $39.1 million to rebuild the 50-year-old school, created as a junior high but now serving grades 3-5. With construction on schedule to begin in September, last week’s showcase was a chance for parents and other community members to move beyond the broad brush strokes of previous plans to the nitty-gritty of carpet swatches and tile samples.

“We are into the finite development now,” said Dexter. “I think the realization has finally hit us that it’s real. That’s it’s all really going to happen. How fabulous, because those of us who’ve been working on the building committee all this time, we weren’t sure how real it was, either. We just kept plugging away and plugging away.”

The result, complete with animated 3-D renderings of the new school, seemed to please those who attended the event.

“It’s all really amazing,” said Jodi Shea, whose daughter, Riley, enters Wentworth this fall and will be in the fifth grade when the new building opens to students in September 2014.

“It just made sense to do this for the kids,” said Shea, referencing the presence of asbestos and mold, a lack of sprinklers, and high CO2 levels due to poor ventilation in 24 portable units adjoined to the school through the years – all factors that drove last summer’s public debate on the need for a new school building.

According to Paul Koziell, building committee chairman, plans for the new school, prepared by Harriman Associates of Portland, are now more than 90 percent complete and “appear to be on budget.”

“That means we will hit the streets ready for bids the first part of July,” said Koziell. “We expect to have bid results I August and we expect to put the first shovel in the ground in September.”

Some work already has begun, however. Although construction bids have yet to go out, Miracle Recreation Equipment has won the contract to rebuild the school’s playground, a project that has a $120,000 budget. That needs to happen first because the existing playground sits where the foundation for the new building will go in.

All of the equipment will be purchased at once, to save on shipping costs, although some will remain in storage for the next 18 months. In the meantime, some of the new equipment will be set up in a temporary playground to be built in the vehicle rotary outside the main office.  

“We’re hoping we see that up and running by the second week of August,” said Dexter, noting that while elements were chosen based on a student vote, the children did not get their way on everything.

“Kids said we want tunnel slides, but Mrs. Dexter said, ‘No, sorry, too much can go on inside those at recess, and from the community at night,’” she explained.

Something students will get is wireless Internet. Soon after the November vote, some parents said they were concerned about the health hazards of radio-frequency transmissions near children. According to Koziell, the building committee staged 13 meetings on the topic starting in January, ultimately concluding that the risks are minimal.

“We spent a lot of time researching the topic and ultimately depended on information from the big names, like the Centers for Disease Control,” said technology committee member Christine Koch, a literacy specialist at the school

A report available on the website www.newwentworth.com shows that a Wi-Fi device emits 0.2 microwatts per square centimeter, compared to 31 for a CMP smart meter, up to 200 for a microwave and as much as 5,000 for a cell phone.

In addition to deeming the Wi-Fi safe to use, the committee also accounted for curriculum needs for Internet technology and the cost of a wireless system over hardwired Internet service, said Koziell.

Dexter said the library, now known as “the learning commons,” has become a focus of late-stage planning, while other recent decisions include lockers for all students (albeit without locks) and carpeting throughout the school, color coded by wing.

“We’ve chosen materials throughout the building that will last and that are easy to maintain,” said Kristin Schuler, chairwoman of the interiors committee.

According to Koziell, the building committee recently chose Phil LaClair, of PML Project Management in Fayette, to be the owner’s representative in the construction phase. LaClair, who served in a similar role at the new Falmouth Elementary School, will assist in hiring a clerk of the works, said Koziell.

Pre-qualification packets for general contractors were due on June 19. Harriman senior project manager Dan Cecil, who also is overseeing reconstruction of South Portland High School, said he does not anticipate a situation similar to what happened there, when bids came in wildly over estimates.

Compared to the work being done in South Portland, Wentworth is a “fairly simple, straight-forward project,” he said.