The Dunbarton Capital Improvements Committee is moving ahead with efforts to have space for full-day kindergarten next school year.
The committee recently put out a request for a construction manager to help manage the 13-item renovation project, which has a projected cost of $1.9 million, according to SAU 67 documents. SAU 67 Superintendent Dean Cascadden said the hope is to have a proposal before the Dunbarton school board by Aug. 16, where it’s expected to be approved. From there, the proposal would go before voters in March – and face a tight deadline in order to deliver full-day kindergarten for the following school year.
“Is it going to be tight? Yes,” Cascadden said. “Are they possibly going to have to work around some things? Possibly, but any construction project is going to have delays.”
School board and committee member Jeff Trexler said it’s too early to know exactly what’s going to happen with the project, including how much it is going to cost. He was confident, however, that bringing a construction manager on board would ensure the project meets its August 2018 deadline, should voters approve it in March. He said the plan would be to begin outside construction in April and then move inside once students leave in June.
“By having a construction manager participate in the design process, they’ll be able to give us the details and the specs of the project, as well as a realistic building timeline,” he said. “And they’ll be able to give us that pricing knowledge and give us a locked in guaranteed maximum price.”
Cost is a big reason Dunbarton had to revert to a half-day kindergarten program this upcoming school year. An article that would have raised $97,192 to send up to eight sixth-graders to Bow Memorial School a year early was defeated during town meeting. The article would have allowed the full-day kindergarten program to continue for another year after larger-than-expected kindergarten and sixth-grade classes threatened to push class sizes beyond what the district deemed necessary.
Trexler said the school’s kindergarten enrollment for this year has dropped from 22 to 11 or 10, but the half-day program is still going forward. He said while the renovation project would also address other school needs – such as redoing the electrical and temperature control systems and adding administrative space to the front of the building – that classroom is the board’s priority.
Trexler also said the project may be more palatable to voters next year thanks to the Legislature’s decision to fund full-day kindergarten. “With half-day kids, we just receive $1,818 per student, but if we had all of those 22 students, we’d be receiving $1,818 for them, plus the $1,100 from the state. That’s a big difference in revenue,” he said.
And while the scope of the project may seem immense, Trexler said completing all the tasks in one swoop is critical to saving money in the long run. “Several of the items we’re replacing have an expected useful life of six years or more,” he said. “It’s better to get it all done now and save some money.”
Trexler said the public will be able to offer input on the project during the fall.
(Caitlin Andrews can be reached at 369-3309, candrews@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @ActualCAndrews.)