GARDNER — The city will soon see its first school built exclusively for elementary students. The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) board of directors recently voted to approve a grant of up to $42 million for a project to replace Waterford Street School and Elm Street School with a new building to be located off Pearl Street.
The proposed building, which will house about 950 pre-K through grade 4 students in its 147,120-square-foot facility, is scheduled to open in the fall 2022.
Superintendent Mark Pellegrino said he is excited that the city had taken one more step in its long journey toward getting a new school.
“Anyone who’s seen the inside of Waterford Street School knows that that school has needed to be replaced for a long time,” he said. “Elm Street School, as well, is just not appropriate for elementary school kids.” Pellegrino said he was pleased that the funding would not interfere with the ongoing $1 million renovation project at Elm Street School, because the city already had plans for it. “The goal is to have (Elm Street School) as Gardner Academy down the road.”
Mayor Mark Hawke said the grant presented is a great financial opportunity for the city.
“The reimbursement is going to be around 60 percent of the total cost, so 60 cents on a dollar in order to build a new school — that’s one of the best deals going because we are at one of the highest possible reimbursement rates,” Hawke said. “It’s a giant step forward.”
Pellegrino said the grant would allow the city to build its first-ever school designed exclusively for elementary students. He said the other buildings used over the years as elementary schools had presented students and staff with some unique challenges.
“We had kids that, in order to use a urinal, had to step up on a stool,” Pellegrino explained. “Not exactly healthy or safe.”
Another consideration officials looked at before approving the grant was the class sizes in the two schools, according to Pellegrino.
“When the MSBA saw the size of the rooms we’ve been working with, they (saw) that they were really undersized for a classroom of about 20 to 25 kids,” he said. “In terms of today’s standards, we are just way behind the times.”
Hawke said the idea of a new elementary school designed specifically for elementary school students had been a long time coming in the city.
“If you talk to all of the academic professionals, they’ll tell you that reusing high school or even junior high school space is not adequately sized,” he said. “And trying to retrofit Elm Street School for 21st century technology is incredibly difficult. (A new school) will go a long way toward improving the city as a whole.”
School Committee member Jennifer Pelavin agreed that it was long past time for the city to have a brand-new building for its elementary students.
“It’s great that the (new building) will be built for kids that age,” she said, adding that the need for the new school has reached critical levels. “Neither Waterford Street School or Elm Street School was originally built for an elementary school, so there were a lot of accommodations that the School Department had to do over the years to kind of fit them to that size of child.”
Pelavin noted that Elm Street School, which had originally been built as a high school, was designed with teenagers in mind.
“So the heating systems and other things were in places that you wouldn’t have them in an elementary school, where kids could possibly get access to, so we had to build things around them to block them off,” she said. “And it’s overwhelming for kids to be in a building that’s so much bigger and built for someone bigger.”
According to State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, MSBA chairwoman, and MSBA Executive Director/Deputy CEO Jack McCarthy, one of the next steps is for the school district and the MSBA to enter into a Project Funding Agreement, which will detail the school project’s scope and budget, along with the conditions under which the district will receive the grant.
“Gardner students will soon have a beautiful new space, which will undoubtedly enhance and improve their ability to excel in the classroom,” McCarthy said.
