The School Building Committee moves quickly and decisively Wednesday, recommending the town pursue a new middle-high school on open property just north of Gaudet Middle School less than a month after Newport rejects regionalization. #MiddletownRI
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CONTACT: Matt Sheley at (401) 842-6543 or msheley@middletownri.com
NEW COMBINED MIDDLE-HIGH SCHOOL MULLED IN MIDDLETOWN
MIDDLETOWN, R.I. (NOVEMBER 30, 2022) – It looks like Middletown might pursue a new combined middle-high school north of Gaudet Middle School.
During a meeting Wednesday afternoon in the Oliphant Administration Building, the School Building Committee acted decisively to recommend construction of the new state-of-the-art grade 6-12 facility at the former Starlight Drive-In property now occupied by mixed use fields.
Before any proposal moves to voters for approval, further details need to be flushed out and given the blessing of the School Committee, Town Council and state General Assembly.
Citing tight state deadlines on reimbursement aid, town officials said they’d like to have a special election for voters to weigh in on any proposal. According to the latest timeline, that could take place as early as April.
“Certainly, Option A meets what we told the taxpayers when we put the bond out there (on Election Day), except now we’re doing it in two steps instead of one…” School Building Committee Co-Chairman Ed Brady said. “We’re on a short timeline…and it allows us to get a lot of bang for our buck.”
“From the visioning sessions and input from parents I’ve heard, this model fits — (grades) 6-12 and pre(kindergarten)-five,” fellow Co-Chairman Charlie Roberts said.
“It’s what we’ve been talking about for months,” School Building Committee member William Nash added.
“From an educational point of view, the opportunities six, seven and eighth (graders) to participate in some high school courses with the new high school regulations coming out, it gives that population wonderful options,” Superintendent Rosemarie K. Kraeger said. “When you look at career tech and our career pathways, it gives some of our middle school students great experiences.”
The news Wednesday comes less than a month after Newport voters left close to $50 million on the table by rejecting regionalizing school districts with Middletown on Nov. 8.
That move would have cleared the way for not only the new middle-high school on the Gaudet land, but also a combined prekindergarten and elementary school center on the Valley Road site now home to Middletown High. All told, the price tag for the entire project was $235 million, 80.5 percent which was going to be covered by the state.
Because limits on how much money the town can borrow, the School Building Committee and others in attendance agreed the elementary school center could not be on the table now.
Rather, they said a separate bond proposal for that project would likely need to be floated before voters in five to seven years.
In the meantime, the town and School Department would keep the existing elementary schools going — particularly Aquidneck School where there are the most issues — as affordably as possible.
During the discussion, the preliminary cost of the new middle-high school was estimated at about $115 million by architects HMFH Architects and DBVW Architects, with the combined elementary school coming in at $71 million.
HMFH Architects Senior Associate Matt Larue said those figures were very rough at this point and would need fine tuning before a formal proposal was put before the School Committee, Town Council and bond counsel.
Town Administrator Shawn J. Brown said he would work on trying to determine Middletown’s safe bonding load through discussions with financial and bond advisors over the next couple weeks.
He noted the community has one of the best bond ratings in Rhode Island — Aa1 — and that might be diminished with a large school project and other work, but it would be for the right reasons in his mind.
Brown said he would update the building board on those issues and more at the group’s next meeting on Dec. 14 at 5 pm from Oliphant.
“The sooner we can come up with what the idea is, we’ll work with it,” Brown said. “It’s not going to happen overnight. We had a solution where we could do it quickly and that didn’t work out, so now we’re back to more of a managed approach.”
For a Wednesday afternoon, the session from the basement meeting room drew a sizable crowd. Several current and former Town Council members -- including Thomas Welch III and Peter Connerton -- were on hand along with new School Committeeman Gregory Huet. School Committeewoman Tami Holden, multiple residents and Newport School Committee candidate Robert Power.
Two weeks ago, the school building board met for the first time since Newport voters rejected regionalization. During that meeting, members of the volunteer board and others agreed it was critical for Middletown to prepare to move forward on its own with its school buildings in order to try to capitalize on available state aid.
A November 2021 report found Middletown’s four schools need extensive upgrades and improvements. DBVW Architects of Providence reported at least $190 million in repairs were required, everything from asbestos and mold remediation to upgrades air handling systems, new elevators, windows and other costly work.
Previously, the schools started the process with the state Department of Education (RIDE) for reimbursements of “Band-Aids” to each building. That proposal was nixed by RIDE, which said it wanted more improvements to the educational environment.
Shifting gears with regionalization, Middletown voters overwhelmingly approved a $235 million bond to clear the way for construction of a new middle-high school and combined elementary school, plans from DBVW and HMFH Architects of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In the wake of the election, local leaders said they’d reach out to Newport and Portsmouth officials to see if there was a stomach to pursue regionalization, a move that would net additional state aid for new building construction, potentially 80 cents on the dollar, if not more.
Brown, Welch and Building Committee Co-Chairman Ed Brady said Wednesday they hadn’t gotten an official update on the status of any talks.
“Right now, we have to move forward at the same time with a plan without regionalization of any type because no community has come to us and said they want to do regionalization,” Roberts said.
“At the same time, there’s still interactions between the communities, but we have to do this (Option A)…There’s been effort from our town on reaching out to Newport, to Portsmouth, to other communities and they’ve had nothing to say. We haven’t heard back.”
“As much as I’m in support of Option A, if Newport comes back to the table or Portsmouth comes to the table, we have to listen,” Nash said. “We’re more than willing to consider that. I don’t want to lose sight of that.”
https://www.middletownri.com/DocumentCenter/View/6308/NYCU-SBC-Planning-Meeting
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