Haverhill’s John Greenleaf Whittier School was formally invited by the state Wednesday to start the process of replacing the beleaguered middle school and receiving partial state reimbursement.
The Massachusetts School Building Authority voted to invite the school into an eligibility period that involves a feasibility study and later steps to determine formally whether the school should be renovated or replaced and the amount of state reimbursement. Haverhill Mayor James J. Fiorentini told board members remotely the Whittier middle school is his own neighborhood school, where his children attended and where he once served on the school’s Site Council and Parent Teacher Organization.
“We’ve had a policy in Haverhill for the past 20 years, after a debt exclusion was voted down 25 years ago, of working to re-do all of our middle schools one by one and this will be the last. We started with the renovation of the Nettle in the 1990s. We completely re-did, with your help at the MSBA, completely rebuilt a new Hunking School about six or seven years ago. The Consentino middle school is breaking ground in the spring and, if approved, this will be the last of our middle schools,” he said.
Fiorentini alluded to building issues when he addressed the committee.
“The roof was replaced about 15 years ago, but it has begun to leak. But, the most important issue on the school is that it is overcrowded. Because class sizes have been reduced, as our population has increased, and because of increased staffing, we currently have overcrowding. Next year, we’ll be spending around $3 or $4 million, money that we had to borrow in order to alleviate the overcrowding,” he said.
Incoming mayor and City Councilor Melinda E. Barrett also urged board members to approve the invitation.
“The building is in need of a replacement at this point. We are bringing in modular classrooms just to support our students and faculty at that school. We are desperately in need of a new school there,” she said.
Haverhill School Committee member Richard J. Rosa also attended the meeting. Rosa told WHAV afterwards that he met with members of the School Building Authority during an Oct. 11 site walk at the Concord Street school. He described one of the scenarios discussed that day.
“Nothing is set in stone. We met with delegation from the MSBA and we talked for quite some time, maybe more than hour, about J.G. Whittier and then took a tour of J.G. Whittier and Tilton. The delegation was exploring the idea of building a larger building to consolidate the two schools,” he said.
As early as the start of 2019, parent Paige Caswell called Whittier the “forgotten school” as other middle schools were built or advanced toward replacement. At the time Caswell cited such issues as mold in the boys’ locker room, poor indoor air quality, moisture in classrooms, temperatures exceeding 90 degrees in restrooms, wet playgrounds, missing plumbing fixtures, roof leaks and crowded classes.
State Treasurer Chairman Deborah Goldberg noted Sen. Barry R. Finegold also sent a letter, urging the school be invited into the eligibility process.