Two Reconstruction Projects Moving Ahead for Middletown Schools

The is moving ahead with reconstruction projects at two schools, but at slower paces than initially planned in the face of fiscal and construction challenges ahead.

The Learning Center and a Technology Center at were identified as priorities at the School Committee meeting Thursday night and will proceed, school officials said.

School Department Facilities Director Ed Collins said each project will be rolled out in phases. “We’re going to go ahead with both, but we just can’t do everything we’d hoped to do right away,” said Collins.

The timetable to complete the Aquidneck Learning Center—an open floor plan shared by multiple classrooms similar to the award-winning learning environment created at the —is now pushed back to summer of 2012.

The Town of Middletown has earmarked $150,000 toward the Aquidneck Learning Center in the latest municipal Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for Fiscal Year 2012 and those monies can be carried forward to complete the project shortly after Fiscal Year 2013 begins, said Collins.

The School Department initially planned to take on the Aquidneck Learning Center project this summer. However as the school year wrapped up and school officials received more information about the extent of work to be involved, they found that some walls they’d hoped to remove are in fact load bearing walls. With more extensive reconstruction needed, school officials determined that the project could not be completed this summer as initially planned and would require additional engineering plans.

Collins said those designs for the Aquidneck School project are to be completed over the next few months. In later months over the next school year, various inserts and features for the Learning Center will be constructed ahead of time so they’re ready for installation during the summer of 2012 once the wall reconfiguration and reconstruction phases have been completed, he said.

The second project involves the Technology Center at Middletown High School. Middletown school officials have been seeking ways to expand educational programs and learning opportunities in the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

With the Metal Shop program discontinued due to a faculty retirement—and by relocating art classes into that shop space—the high school found itself suddenly having the opportunity and room to expand the technology program with additional instructional space that will take over the former arts space next door.

However, due to limited funds available, the build-out of that project initially will not be as extensive as school officials had hoped, said Collins.

“That will have to be phased in, but we’ll be able to do enough to at least get started, and for it to be used,” Collins said. “Without the CIP money to develop it right away, obviously that’s going to have to go at a slower pace.”

On Monday at the Town Council meeting, school officials had requested that the CIP funds for the Aquidneck Learning Center be reallocated to complete the Middletown High School Technology Center this summer, but without a formally revised CIP priorities list approved by the School Committee, the Town Council denied the request and kept those funds earmarked for the Aquidneck Learning Center.

To make the new Technology Center space at least functional this year, the School Department plans on using a combination of other special funds earmarked for schools CIPs. According to School Department Business Manager Raquel Pellerin, $114,000 will come from impact aid received from the Department of Defense (DOD) for students from military families and another $49,000 will come from AT&T cellular tower rentals that are earmarked specifically for school CIPs.

“It’s not exactly as we had wanted it, but it will cover the parts of the project that are necessary to be done,” said Pellerin.

The School Department will continue to seek outside grants and funding sources to continue the later phases of the project, Pellerin said.