Calais school renovations debated

CALAIS – The state’s nudging of the city toward renovating its existing school facilities, after recent figures have indicated the population of school-aged children is declining, represents a change in the state’s approach to Calais’ school needs.

For the past few years, the state has encouraged the city to hire expensive architects and explore two possibilities: renovate the existing middle school building or add onto the elementary school. The cost of either option would be about $4 million.

For a brief period, the architects even discussed building a new $5 million middle school building.

After countless meetings and thousands of dollars in costs, the state now says that because of the city’s declining enrollment, a new school building is not needed. The new proposal calls for splitting the middle school, sending half the pupils to the high school and the other half to the elementary school.

Jeff Demmons, during a meeting of the city’s school building committee Wednesday, wanted to know why the state had not addressed the issue of the city’s declining enrollment before now. Enrollment has been on a steady decline since 1990-91, when the fifth- through eighth-grade population was 241 pupils. Five years later, that figure dropped to 202. Last year, the school population was at 179. The state projects that by 2010-11, the middle school enrollment will hover around 90.

School Committee member Nancy Gillis, who is a member of the building committee, said that at first school officials did not believe the enrollment numbers presented were accurate. She said a previous study prepared by a different company just a few years ago showed a higher student population.

“So they took it [the most recent study] apart and analyzed it and re-analyzed it, and it is right, unfortunately,” she said.

As a result, the state now is wobbling on its commitment to do one of three things: renovate the middle school, add onto the elementary school or build a new school building.

The issue of what to do with the middle school arose about three years ago, when a previous school committee closed the existing 50-year-old middle school for safety and health reasons. Pupils later were moved to two portable classroom buildings and that is where they have remained.

Three years ago, the city learned that the state would consider funding either new construction or renovation to existing structures, and the school committee hired an architectural firm. Later, a new school committee hired a second architectural firm to study the issue. It is that architectural firm that recommended the city build a new school building.

Now the projected student-population numbers appear to have made that recommendation out of the question. As a result, representatives of Oak Point Associates of Biddeford have been in the city measuring and examining the existing facilities. The proposed recommendation is to move the sixth- and seventh-grade pupils to the high school building, but housed in a separate wing. The fourth- and fifth-grade classes would be moved to the elementary school. The architects recommend that a gymnasium and classrooms be added to the elementary school building.

On Wednesday night, the members of the building committee expressed frustration at the mixed signals from state officials. Twice a year, the school department files its enrollment numbers with the state, and the committee members wondered why those numbers weren’t considered before so much time and money was spent on plans that would never receive state approval.

“None of us should have been doing anything until we had all of the facts,” School Committee member Billy Howard said. Howard, who also is a member of the building committee, said he wished the state had been more forthcoming in the process. “I think the state should just tell us what they want. You could come up with 18 plans, and they are just going to say which one they want, so you might as well let them tell you right up front what they want and that’s it,” he said.

Superintendent May Bouchard defended the state. She said state officials led the city through a process, which helped them reach this point.