School officials revise facilities plan, raise pay for subs

The Canton School Committee has revised its school facilities master plan with the focus now shifting to a renovated Galvin Middle School that would serve students in grades 5-8. The plan would still be predicated on the school system being approved for reimbursement funding from the Mass. School Building Authority (MSBA).

While renovations to GMS had always been a central part of the school department’s long-range vision, the previous iteration of the master plan, approved in September 2017, had called for fifth graders to move to the middle school and eighth graders to move to a separate academy housed in the Rodman building. Under this plan, the pre-K students, currently at the Rodman, would have moved to the elementary schools while the central offices would have moved to the Galvin.

However, after investigating the feasibility of all the proposed moves and the upgrades needed to execute them, representatives from the architectural firm Dore & Whittier recommended against the formation of a grade 8 academy. Instead, School Committee members decided at last week’s meeting that the best course of action would be to renovate the Rodman for an expanded Early Childhood Center and administrative office location. The fifth graders, meanwhile, would still move to the Galvin as originally planned while modular classrooms would be added to the three existing elementary schools.

School Business Administrator Barry Nectow, in a report to the School Committee, pegged the revised cost of all facilities upgrades at $118.2 million, the bulk of which would be for the GMS renovation ($112.5M). Nectow said the MSBA reimbursement, if approved, would be around $45 million, bringing the net cost of school building upgrades to $73.2 million.

Although Canton’s previous bid for renovation funds was rejected by the MSBA in December, MSBA officials urged Canton to reapply in 2019 and the application is expected to be filed soon.

If the MSBA funding is approved this year, then funding for the remaining portion of the project would be put before voters at the May 2020 town meeting and potentially in a special election if an override were to be needed. If the MSBA application is rejected for a second time, then school officials would reevaluate their options at that time, according to committee chairperson Kristin Mirliani.

Nectow said if all goes well, the goal would be to have a newly renovated Rodman building opened by September 2024 with a renovated Galvin School opening a year later in September 2025.

The other major news from the January 17 School Committee meeting involved the school district’s substitute teachers, who received a pay raise that brought Canton from the lower end among comparable area towns to the “middle to upper end,” according to Nectow.

Effective January 22, the per diem rate for non-licensed substitutes … See this week’s Canton Citizen to continue reading this story. Not a subscriber? Click here to order your subscription today (also available in digital form).

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Posted by Mike Berger on Jan 25 2019. Filed under News, Schools. Both comments and pings are currently closed.