Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 5/18/2022
WEST SPRINGFIELD — Some classrooms are painted, some have finished floors, almost all have open ceilings showing the seemingly endless spaghetti strands of power and data cables that will serve the high-tech needs of what will be, starting next year, West Springfield’s newest school.
Coburn School is nearing completion.
“The work that’s been done already is just really excited,” Assistant Superintendent Vito Perrone told the School Committee on May 10.
“Just seeing the technology, the size of the rooms, the windows, everything. … We’re in a totally different place, educationally,” said Mayor William Reichelt, after taking a tour of the construction site earlier that day.
Tom Murphy, the project director for NV5, the firm that serves as the owner’s project manager for the town, said during the tour that the school is on schedule for “substantial completion” in July, and occupancy when the new school year begins in August.
Among the amenities that Murphy pointed out on the tour are the high-ceilinged cafeteria and gymnasium. Between these two large rooms is a stage with openings on both sides, so either one can be used as an auditorium. The stage can also be closed on both sides for use as a classroom.
The current Coburn School, adjacent to the construction site at Lathrop and Southworth streets, has a current enrollment of about 450 pupils. The new school is being built to accommodate 700. In addition to the current Coburn classrooms of grades 1-5, the new school will house kindergartners from that neighborhood. Reichelt said Cowing School will stay open for another year, but eventually the pre-kindergarten and elementary-aged alternative programs from Cowing will move to the Coburn building.
Murphy said the Coburn project is considered 75 percent complete, but that number is misleading, as the final 7-8 percent of the project consists of demolition of the current Coburn School building, which will happen after the new building opens.
The site of the current school, facing Southworth Street, will become a parking lot for the new school.