School’s out for Springfield administration

Voters will be asked to approve a $29.3 million school budget that includes an extra $100,000 to pay for moving the school administration out of Park Street School.


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School’s out for Springfield administration Rutland Herald | January 20, 2017 By SUSAN SMALLHEER STAFF WRITER SPRINGFIELD — Voters will be asked to approve a $29.3 million school budget that includes an extra $100,000 to pay for moving the school administration out of Park Street School. School Board Chairman Ed Caron said that the $100,000 “plus” would be used for moving expenses and other associated costs, but would not include rental payments to house the school administration, the IT staff and other programs that would have to be moved out of Park Street School. The historic school building hasn’t been used as a school for several years; it was the town’s original high school before the current high school was built on South Street in the 1960s. “ We’re getting out. We’re being pre-emptive,” said Caron. “We had to do something.” Caron said the decision to add $100,000 to the budget was made Tuesday with the concurrence of the school’s budget advisory group. He said it hadn’t been included in Superintendent Zachary McLaughlin’s original budget. Caron said he had no idea where the administration would move, assuming the school budget is adopted by voters at March Town Meeting. He said a non-traditional classroom that is currently taught at Park Street School will also have to find a new home. He said that the All For One program left last year, and the after-school program left as well for other space. “It’s been coming for a while,” he said. He said that the school administration had been “authorized to look” for new space since December 2015, when the board voted to sell Park Street School. He said the building is not currently listed with a real estate agent but the board, at its Tuesday night meeting, decided it was time to act. The status of Park Street School and what to do with it has been the focus of at least two study committees between the Springfield Select Board and the School Board, since the building and land are owned jointly by the town and school district. Select Board member George McNaughton, the Select Board’s liaison to the school board, said he was opposed to the school administration moving out of the building without a plan in place for the school. A vacant, unheated building will only deteriorate, said McNaughton. “That is a lovely building,” he said. McNaughton said Park Street School was a lovely, historically significant building, and he said the auditorium, the gymnasium and the school’s staircases — which are made of Vermont marble — are particularly nice. He said the staircases had been unnecessarily “tackied up” because of what he called unreasonable demands by state fire safety inspectors. McNaughton noted that the town is working with a consultant to have a special tax investment district approved for downtown Springfield, and to include Park Street School within its boundaries, increasing its appeal to potential real estate investors. McLaughlin, the superintendent, couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday.