At their joint meeting Monday evening, the Tisbury School committee and selectmen approved more than $900,000 in three co-sponsored warrant articles in a continued process to move forward after last year’s proposed plan to build a new school was voted down at town meeting.
With the aim of giving some direction to the project, the two committees voted to include language in one warrant article specifying that they plan to do a renovation and addition on the existing school rather than build a new school. Other warrant articles would fund more urgent improvements to the school.
“Let’s go for it. Let’s start planning a renovation/addition right away,” said selectman Jim Rogers.
School committee member Janet Packer agreed.
“I think we definitely need more room and we definitely need that building to be repaired... I think it’s not such a bad idea to actually move the ball and start focusing on that,” she said.
The April town meeting warrant articles are as follows:
— Up to $400,000 for design work for a renovation/addition to the school including some $70,000 leftover from the previous project.
— Up to $410,000 for mold and mildew testing and remediation (co-sponsored with the town facilities department).
— Up to $122,000 for repairs and replacements including the gym wall and roof, buckling floors in six classrooms, and the school entrance (co-sponsored with the town facilities department).
The two bodies acknowledged the difficult process and potential variables of spending funds for short-term repairs when a larger renovation/addition project is looming.
“I think we need to keep in mind between now and town meeting, hopefully we’re going to do something on a much larger scale,” Mr. Rogers said to agreement from the school committee. “So to spend money on something that’s going to get torn apart or replaced in a year or two, I think we need to keep that in mind going forward.”
School committee chairman Amy Houghton said the amounts in the warrant articles could be reduced at town meeting if plans for larger improvements solidify. Town administrator Jay Grande noted that the total for mold remediation was based on several variables, and was likely to change.
School principal John Custer asked the two boards whether there was any interest in applying for funding support from the Massachusetts School Building Authority. The school committee and selectmen were unenthusiastic about another application to the state for support.
Tristan Israel, chairman of the board of selectmen, said he worried the school would have to apply several more times before being accepted into the program again.
“I don’t know if we can afford to wait that long,” Mr. Israel said.
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