So long Spurwink

Social service agency leaving South Portland’s Roosevelt School Sept. 1 after 27 years

South Portland’s old Roosevelt School, built in 1927 and
leased by Spurwink Services since 1985, will be empty as
 of Sept. 1 when the mental health and special education
provider moves out to consolidate programs in Portland.

SOUTH PORTLAND — Spurwink Services, a provider of mental health and special education services, has announced it will close its K-10 program at South Portland’s old Roosevelt School effective Sept. 1.

Spurwink has leased the three-story brick building at 317 Pine St. since 1985. However, before the city can focus on future tenants, it first needs to come to terms on termination of the agency’s 20-year lease, which was not due to expire until 2016.

“That’s a lot of what the attorneys are working on right now,” said city Finance Director Greg L’Heureux on Tuesday. “There have been a number of amendments the council has approved over the years and everything has been turned over to the city attorney, Sally Daggett, to sort through.”

Daggett could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but City Manager Jim Gailey said last week that one of the key issues is depreciation of capital improvements Spurwink made to the building, including installation of a roof, an elevator and a new boiler.

“We’re working through the lease right now, with all the re-ups and addendums,” said Gailey, who attended Roosevelt as an elementary student. “Right now, it seems that there are some leaseholder agreements that might need to be paid out based on the amortization schedules.”

In other words, the city might end up paying Spurwink to leave.

“We met yesterday to talk about an exit strategy for the lease,” Gailey said on Tuesday, characterizing the talks with Spurwink officials as “very preliminary at this time.”

According to L’Heureux, Spurwink got to write off the annual depreciation of improvements from its lease, which was set at what taxes would beon the 13,000-square-foot building set on a 1.74-acre lot if it were privately held. Given the $16.10 per $1,000 of valuation property tax rate and an assessed value of $738,300, the lease would have been $11,887 this year. However, L’Heureux notes, the write-offs have made the lease “effectively zero for many years now,” although the agency has paid routine maintenance and upkeep out of pocket.

L’Heureux said it’s “possible” that financial terms of the break-up could be settled by Sept. 1. At some point, Gailey said, the City Council will conduct a workshop to decide future dispensation of the building.

One unlikely prospect, however, is that it might be repurposed as a new City Hall. Officials have looked in recent years to several properties, including the armory, 100 Waterman Drive and Mahoney Middle School, as a place to consolidate city services. However, Roosevelt is too far off the beaten path, said Gailey.

“It’s too soon to say what might happen, but I think City Hall belongs in the central part of the city,” he said.

According to Sonia Garcia, Spurwink’s director of clinical business development and marketing, the Roosevelt school was instrumental to the agency’s success in its early years.

“The Roosevelt School is of historical significance to Spurwink,” she said. “The Roosevelt program laid the ground work for the development of an effective day treatment model for young children with pervasive developmental disorders, including children on the autism spectrum.”

The same year Spurwink opened at Roosevelt, it won recognition from the National Institute of Mental Health as one of 11 “exemplary programs” across the nation. But Garcia said enrollment has been on the decline in recent years.

Now, 22 students are served at Roosevelt, off more than 50 percent from its high, according to Garcia. All of the students will be offered placement in a new children’s wing to be created at Spurwink’s Cummings School in Portland. Spurwink was able to transfer all but two of Roosevelt’s 30 staffers elsewhere within its system, said Garcia.

Most of the loss in enrollment, Garcia theorized, is due to public schools putting a greater emphasis on special education in recent years.

“Public schools have really been sharpening their saws and really finding ways of assisting kids with special needs,” she said. “So, that could be part of lower enrollment.”

But if parents are choosing to place their special needs students in the public schools, local school officials say it’s not because they’re out recruiting.

South Portland Superintendent Suzanne Godin said recently there are 523 individuals in her district receiving special services for at least one identifiable, primary disability. That’s about 17 percent of total enrollment in South Portland.

Treatment for autism, long one of Spurwink’s specialties, has seen an especially rapid growth, up from fewer than 10 students eight years ago, when Godin took the top job in South Portland schools, to 61 today.

“Honestly, we really don’t know what’s driving that,” said Godin, at a recent school board retreat.

“It does seem that a lot of families are looking to bring their kids into the public system in their communities and it’s hurt Spurwink’s elementary program,” said Gailey.

Whatever the reason for the shift, Spurwink still has plenty on its plate. Founded in 1960 with eight special needs boys, the agency now serves more than 5,000 clients – including children and adults with a range of mental health issues – in 20 homes and six special education schools for children age five to 21. It boasts 900 employees,

“In the past few months we’ve been really focusing on a consolidation strategy,” said Garcia. “It’s hard to run all of these schools and so closing this school and moving the children to Cummings just really made good sense.”

While it has been around for a while, there are a lot of holes in the Roosevelt School’s history, according to Kathryn DiPhilippo, director of the South Portland Historical Society.

"The Roosevelt School was built in 1927 and the elementary grades served over the years fluctuated, depending on the city's annual school population," she said last week. But not a lot else is known, DiPhilippo said, including exactly how much time passed between its shuttering as a public school and the day Spurwink came on the scene.

"Our school system is badly in need of research and a book publication," said DiPhilippo.