Rundlett rebuild for $155M gets green light from Concord Board of Education

Dan Hayes has visited each and every one of New Hampshire’s 328 public schools, checking its safety systems and condition for the state Department of Safety.  

“Rundlett is the worst school I’ve ever seen,” he said. “It’s a dump.” 

Outside the meeting, Hayes emphasized he spoke as a resident, and a parent of a current teacher, not on behalf of the state. 

His daughter, a language teacher between the middle and high schools, recently helped host foreign exchange students. She recounted to him how they had wondered what the trash barrels in the school hallway were for, and how she was embarrassed to say they were to catch rain from the leaking roof. 

“This, however,” he said, gesturing to the kaleidoscope of colored tiles on the wall at Abbot-Downing, “is a beautiful school.” 

In the cafetorium behind him, more than 150 Concord residents sat facing a microphone and nine members of the Concord Board of Education. The group was divided – though not evenly – over the prospect of building a new middle school, at odds over its $155 million budget. A strong majority, buoyed by a contingent of teachers in “Blue Dukes” t-shirts, pleaded with the school board to move forward with the school. 

After two hours of testimony, they did, with a vote of 8-1. 

“My district was very much ‘Rundlett, Broken Ground, we don’t care, just build it,’” said board member Jessica Campbell. “Just build the school.”  

For Amy Golden, a sixth-grade math teacher at the current middle school, it was a long time coming. 

In her 25 years there, Golden estimates she’s spent 4,500 days inside the 1957 school. In the years of waiting for a new one, she and her colleagues have shopped at yard sales and scrounged through the building’s “scary basement” for furniture and fixes. 

“Some things can’t be patched up,” she said. 

The district had offered childcare in a nearby classroom, and from time to time during the meeting, a rustle or chatter drifted into the hearing. 

For others in the crowd, the $155 million price tag was more than they could stomach. They understood that the school had issues, but wanted the board to look harder at things that might not be needed and to reconsider the existing space. 

“Both the school board and the city council had unexpected costs crop up recently, for which they will increase tax rates. That doesn’t include a new rundlett or the numerous projects the city has,” said Pat DeAngelis. “We’re not a Bedford or a Londonderry or some other affluent community. We’re a predominantly middle and lower-middle-class city. Please try to keep that in mind.”

The board members voting yes explained before voting that they felt they had done this diligence. They had looked into renovating the current school and found that it wouldn’t have saved any money. They had taken things out of the design that they were comfortable cutting. There was no sign that waiting would save them any money when doing so in the past had only raised the price tag.

In her seven years on the board, President Pamela Walsh said, she’d been part of that.

 “I’ve also watched the costs escalate – and it’s not because new things were added to the project,” she said. “We took out the gold-plated ballroom years ago.”

Sean Landry endorsed their view. He works for Levallee-Brensinger, an architecture firm that put in a bid to design the new middle school a few years back and wasn’t chosen. If anyone stood to benefit from a delay on the school or a search for a new architect, as some had suggested, it was him. He urged them not to.

“Could it be more cost-effective? sure,” Landry said, “but whatever you might save, you will spend that in time and redesign fees.” 

The vote Thursday night set a $155 million budget ceiling for the project, covered by a 30-year bond. The board can rearrange some shorter-term costs and leverage its trust funds to blunt some of the hit on tax bills. Depending on the accounting work, and where construction bids come in, he estimated that the debt would add between 53 cents and 69 cents to the tax rate – or between $212 and $276 for a $400,000 home – in the first year. That amount would go down slightly each year until the debt is paid off. 

Barb Higgins was the lone ‘no’ vote on the board. It was a recognition, she said, of people in the city, especially retirees on fixed incomes, for whom the decision might jeopardize daily expenses like groceries or gas money. They mattered, she said, as much as the teachers and students who need the school. She was clearly torn. 

At the same time, said Higgins, often serving as an unofficial board historian, short-cuts and short-sighted cost-saving measures in the past had only come back to haunt city leaders – and their tax base. 

A recurring sinkhole at Concord High School that was repaired over the summer was a reminder of that. 

 “Sometimes,” Higgins acknowledged, “the money has to be spent to do it right.”