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The Whittier Regional Vocational Technical High School Committee will formally ask the state for an option on about 13.5 acres on the Northern Essex Community College campus in Haverhill as part of the process of potentially siting a new school building there.
Angus G. Jennings, new Whittier Tech business manager, recommended Wednesday that Whittier Tech School Committee members take out an exclusive right to the land before any money is spent on hiring a project manager or architects.
“You know we would hate to see the School Committee spend quite a bit of public money only to find this site is not going to happen,” Jennings explained.
Jennings noted that while the trustees and administration at Northern Essex have been on board with a shared campus idea from the start, college trustees do not have the authority to commit the land.
“As much as Northern Essex has been a great partner and very fully engaged and fully supportive, and on the front end of this idea, with all due respect, it’s not their land. It’s the Commonwealth’s land.” Jennings noted.
School Committee Chairman Ronald Fitzgerald praised Jennings for his foresight. The proposal required no vote but the Committee gave Jennings permission to proceed.
Jennings said he plans to work with officials at Northern Essex and ask the state’s Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance for the option. He said he expects a lease or purchase arrangement to last up to five years. He did not say what he thought the option might cost Whittier Tech.
School officials have been pursuing the replacement of the aging 50-plus year-old building with a failing sewerage treatment plant on Amesbury Line Road for several years. As previously reported by WHAV, the School Committee voted to spend up to $2.5 million on a feasibility study to repair or replace the current building, putting the 11-community school district in line to receive reimbursement from the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
The replacement cost of the school is anticipated to be north of $445 million.
In addition to addressing the maintenance issues at the current campus, school officials have said they believe building at Northern Essex would ultimately save the district money because the land is on a sewer line and the close proximity to the college would provide students with greater chances to take early college courses. Additionally, it would allow the school to increase its enrollment from the current 1,250 to closer to 2,000. School officials estimate that about 200 students a year from Haverhill alone cannot enroll at Whittier Tech because of lack of space. In the first admission lottery in January, 770 students applied across the district for entrance into the freshman class and 410 were waitlisted.
In other business, the school voted to seat two new representatives on its Regional Agreement Amendment Committee. The advisory committee formed nine months ago at the behest of the state. The current regional agreement, which outlines how the district apportions operations and capital costs, was executed in 1967 when the district was created. As part of feasibility process, the state board is requiring the district to update it.
Under the current apportionment formula, Haverhill would pay 44% of new construction even though it sends 66% of the school’s students. That’s because the current capital cost distribution formula is based on each community’s total kindergarten through grade 12 enrollment. By comparison, day-to-day operational costs are allocated based on the number of students each community sends to Whittier Tech. Newburyport and Rowley both favor a strict accounting based on per-pupil enrollment at Whittier Tech for capital costs as well.
The two new representatives are Gwendolyn Lay Sabbagh, of Merrimac, and Maura Mastrogiovanni, of Rowley.
The next meeting of the advisory board is Wednesday, Sept. 16, 10 a.m., at Northern Essex.