A committee of parents and school staff have been meeting at a breakneck pace in hopes of making a recommendation to the district by June about Pembroke’s two lower elementary schools.
“What we’ve done so far is narrow down the choices of what wouldn’t work for logistical reasons,” said Andy Camidge, a parent at the Hill School and the committee’s chairman.
The committee has been meeting since February to discuss how and when to merge the Village School, which offers grades K-1, together with the Hill School, which offers grades 2-4. The Village school needs an estimated $3.5 million in repairs to get back up to code, and district officials think they can save money by closing a building.
Chief among the things that likely won’t happen: shifting grades around. The committee had early on considered moving grade 4 to Three Rivers School, and grade 8 to Pembroke Academy, which is under-enrolled, when the Village and Hill merged, because of space constraints at Hill, where the two elementaries would combine. But that won’t work, Camidge said, largely because of bussing. Three Rivers is also already at capacity, according to committee minutes.
It’s also improbable anything will happen next year, Camidge said, since transition costs would probably have to come out of a capital reserve fund – something voters would need to approve in March. But the committee still wants to get its work done by June in order to run their ideas by the town’s Capital Improvement Plan committee, which meets in the summer.
The committee’s work is now focused on costing out different alternatives, which could include building an addition at Hill, or using modulars. An architect is scheduled to present about the cost of an addition at Hill school at the school board on May 8, Camidge said, which will be a key part of the puzzle.
“When we bring forward our recommendation, the inevitable question will be ‘ did you think of this, did you think of that?’ and we want to be able to say: yes,” Camidge said.
The group next meets on May 10 at 6 p.m. in the Hill School professional room.
(Lola Duffort can be reached at 369-3321 or lduffort@cmonitor.com.)