Fifth Street Middle School pupils will start summer vacation three days earlier this year to allow a school renovations project to be completed by the time school opens in the fall.

Instead of ending school on Wednesday, June 13, the school year will end Friday, June 8, for pupils. The final day for teachers will be June 14.

Fifth Street Principal John Fahey said the early dismissal was the best solution to having the school cleared of books, desks, equipment, and the portable classrooms removed, to start the renovations process. Fahey said Thursday that the contractor, Nickerson and O’Day, had set a June 18 deadline to have the school cleared of materials.

To reach the deadline under the first schedule, packing would have started on the 13th and completed on June 14 and 15, the last two workdays before the deadline.

“It was just more than we could accomplish in three days,” Fahey said.

The reduction from the state-required 175 days to 172 days this year was approved by the office of the Maine education commissioner. On Monday, the Bangor School Committee unanimously approved the reduction.

Earlier in the week Deputy Commissioner Richard Card said school waivers, while not numerous, were not uncommon. He estimated that 20 schools from across the state had applied for waivers which included school-year lengths and for graduation requirements. Card added that the most common waiver requests were to change the length of the school year because of construction projects or facility problems.

The Fifth Street summer renovations project includes putting in new heating piping and vents, new science laboratories and computer rooms, repainting walls and carpeting floors throughout the school, and changing the current library to classrooms. Landscaping and transforming the school’s current industrial arts area into four classrooms also will been done over the summer.

Completion of the project, begun last summer, is expected to be December 1990. While the addition will be open to pupils by the start of school, work will be done on the new library, auditorium, and possibly one of the science laboratories in the addition, said Roger Moody, director of business services.

Moody said that about three months ago the contractor had notified them that they were five weeks behind schedule. He said he was not sure whether they had made up the full five weeks. To help ensure that the project will be completed on time, Moody said, the contractor will hire an extra foreman over the summer.