The School Building Committee meets Wednesday night and discusses a number of educational benefits of a new middle-high school in Middletown. #MiddletownRI
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CONTACT: Matt Sheley at (401) 842-6543 or msheley@middletownri.com
EDUCATIONAL BENEFITS OF NEW MIDDLE-HIGH SCHOOL TOUTED
MIDDLETOWN, R.I. (FEBRUARY 15, 2023) – A middle-high school in Middletown would benefit students and educators — and not just because it’s new.
At a School Building Committee meeting Wednesday in the Oliphant Administration Building, educational experts outlined a myriad of pluses of the project, saying it could be transformational for the Middletown school system.
Using middle-high schools in Saugus and Winthrop, Massachusetts as examples, project consultants said the new building could help boost the curriculum and offer classes there weren’t the proper spaces for at the existing Middletown High and Gaudet Middle schools.
By offering a safer, healthier learning environment, they noted studies showed student achievement could also rise based on the results of countless studies.
And by reducing the need for routine maintenance at both the buildings could inject tens of thousands of existing dollars into classrooms, resulting in more robust offerings from grades 6-12.
If approved by voters at a special May 2 election, the project is expected to cost the average Middletown homeowner about $2 day. Early voting is expected to begin April 12.
“Schools are an economic driver for the success of any community,” School Committee Chairwoman Theresa Spengler said. “People move here and will build new houses if the schools are high rated, people will come back to our community…
“We’ve already invested in a new police station, a new fire department, a new (Department of Public Works) building. We are repairing roads to make our community safe for driving for our families (as well as) for our pedestrians and our bicyclists. We have a new library we’re talking about and we’ve made beach improvements. We’ve patched our schools. We have not invested in our schools.”
“To me, as a taxpayer and a senior, what are the consequences if we don’t do this…” resident Ronald Heroux asked. “We’ve got to get that message out to the people before we start voting.”
Ever since the release of a November 2021 report outlining the deficiencies of each of the district’s four schools, Middletown has been at a crossroads with what to do with those buildings.
DBVW Architects of Providence said at least $190 million in repairs were required to the 60-year-old plus buildings. That included asbestos and mold remediation, upgrades to air handling systems, new elevators, windows and other costly projects.
On Election Day 2022, Middletown and Newport officials put forward an innovative plan to combine school districts through regionalization. As part of that proposal, Middletown asked for $235 million in bonds for three new schools.
Middletown voters overwhelmingly supported the concept, but Newport turned back the project by less than 400 votes, leaving at least $50 million in state reimbursements on the table. Within days, city residents learned the Rogers High School project was $20 million plus in the hole and deep cuts were needed. That triggered a restart of regionalization talks between Newport and Middletown, but those failed to find common ground.
Instead, the Middletown School Committee and School Building Committee voted to support construction of a new state-of-the-art grade 6-12 school on the Gaudet field site. The Town Council followed suit in early February, saying the plan was the most logical and economical approach.
Preliminary details showed the new middle-high school would be built at the former Starlight Drive-In property just north of Gaudet Middle School. The property is now home to multi-use fields on Aquidneck Avenue.
The way the new school would be designed, middle and high school students would attend classes there, with grades 6-8 in one section of the building and grades 9-12 in another.
Educators and project consultants have said the middle and high school students would be completely separate from each other, but share resources like the auditorium, cafeteria and other spaces.
All of the facilities would be geared towards flexible, 21st century learning spaces designed to be welcoming, bright and secure.
The School Building Committee is working with leading educational planning expert Manuel Cordero about how the new building and curriculum could best work together.
According to early details, $170 million would be set aside for the middle-high school and $20 million for repairs to the existing elementary schools.
Local leaders have said the timeline for the project has been compressed due to the pending expiration of state reimbursements on new school construction. They’ve said ideally that years of discussion and analysis could go into the effort, but that was time the town didn’t have now.
School Building Committee members asked to look at new schools that were outstanding learning centers, but built cost effectively too. The Pell Elementary School in Newport was cited as one example of such a project along with several in Massachusetts.
Building Committee Co-Chairman Charlie Roberts said he came away impressed with some of the ideas existing administrators and staff have for the direction of the Middletown schools. Roberts said a conversation with Middletown High Principal Jeff Heath was one such example.
“Some of the stuff coming out of his mind about what we could do here and the programs we could offer could definitely drive our design,” Roberts said.
“One thing that Jeff mentioned during the tour was maintaining a flexibility as we’re developing these spaces,” fellow Building Committee Co-Chairman Edward Brady said. “As time goes on, some of the programs become outdated and we need to look at other programs as well.”
As things begin to crystalize before May 2, they said reliable, accurate information has to be pushed out to the public in multiple formats so everyone understands the need for the project.
The town and schools are working on updating their websites and coming up with a communications plan to make sure there’s plenty of data and details available prior to the special election.
Document Link: https://www.middletownri.com/DocumentCenter/View/7651/SBC-21523