Expanding Bangor High

Bangor city councilors Monday are expected to hear plans for a major addition to Bangor High School. It is a plan they should welcome as an affirmation that this successful school has many more years ahead as a leader in academics.

Built 35 years ago, before the broad range of advanced and honors courses, before computer labs, before the mainstreaming of special-education students, Bangor High School is at or near capacity. The problem is not so much the school’s ability to meet current demands for a high-quality education, but the recognition that it cannot continue to grow academically without also growing physically. Its classrooms, study halls, former shop areas and labs have been configured and reconfigured during the last decade to provide maximum use, but school administrators make the strong case that they have run out of options in the current confines of the building.

This problem is not unique to Bangor. Schools all over the state for much the same reason are seeking to expand or build new. If Bangor is unusual, it is that, first, it has done a thorough job of maintaining the school building so that a new one isn’t needed (at an estimated cost of $50 million) and, second, it has used its resources to especially good effect, educating top-notch students who go on to excellent colleges and universities. Just as there is a price in the form of a tuition bill that comes to parents whose children go on to college, there is a price – small and worth paying – to continue Bangor High’s success.

The expansion plan for the high school, at $4.5 million, adds classroom space for math and history, English and foreign language; provides new and renovated labs to the science department; improves the design of special-education resource rooms; and builds a much-needed connection between the two main classroom areas. Perhaps most important, it expands by 50 percent the library, which is too small to serve the school’s 1,400 students. The changes are substantial, but there’s nothing elaborate in the plans. They merely seek to give students room to take part in classroom exercises, perform lab experiments and move around the school efficiently. Or, in the case of the library, not be forced to use the floor as a desk because all other spots have been taken.

When members of the city’s Finance Committee hear of these plans Monday, they no doubt will have in the backs of their minds the fact that most city taxpayers do not and will not have children in the school system. What’s in it for them? Quite a lot, actually. Bangor’s well-educated students, for instance, are of immediate and long-term benefit to the city, whether contributing to the many community services here or returning after college to begin their working careers. As a statewide leader in education, Bangor uses its schools as catalysts for innovative and effective learning techniques that are copied elsewhere. And the city’s school system is a magnet for families considering a move to Maine, bringing with them new businesses and new vitality to the area.

Any chance that the state might contribute to these renovations is years away and would amount to a small percentage of the total. Bangor can’t wait that long for so little support. Instead, it should move forward with these needed changes and keep its high school at the forefront of education.