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Date: 5/17/2023
AGAWAM — It’s been 50 years since Agawam has built a new school, but the town is one step closer to a new or extensively renovated high school, now that the project is in the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s eligibility period.
The next steps are the responsibility of the School Building Committee, which includes the school superintendent, a School Committee member, a city councilor, the mayor, the school business manager, the town’s building maintenance director, the Agawam High School principal, community members and the town treasurer, and has been meeting monthly.
The committee’s task is to gather information to determine whether the town should build a new high school, renovate the existing one or combine a renovation and addition. The town allocated $1.2 million for this feasibility study.
“We have contractors coming into this building all the time now,” said AHS Principal Jim Blain. “They’re looking to produce a plan. They’re meeting with our teachers, our students and our community partners.”
Blain said he, the mayor and the elementary school principals are also looking for residents who might be interested in serving on what will be called the visioning committee.
“That committee will help Agawam create a vision of education for the next 40 to 50 years, because that’s the school we will be likely building,” he said.
High school design philosophies are different today than when the current high school first opened, Blain said. Agawam High School’s 1950s core and several additions are one-story buildings that have spread wide to accommodate the town’s population growth. The next high school likely will be two or three stories with different wings, or sections, to eliminate long hallway runs.
“The way they’re building high schools now is with wings — different academic areas — connected with a ‘main street’ to a community way that’s more accessible. We’re accessible to the school community here, but we’re just too fragmented,” Blain said.
All School Building Committee meeting are open to the public. The next two meetings will be Thursday, May 25, and Wednesday, June 7. The May meeting will be at the Agawam Public Library, 750 Cooper St., from 9:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., and the June meeting will be at the high school library, 760 Cooper St., from 8 to 10 a.m.
The committee is responsible for all aspects of the project, including the feasibility study, design and construction phases. Tasks in the feasibility stage include:
“The eligibility period is a critical step in the MSBA’s process of evaluating potential work on Agawam High School,” said MSBA Executive Director Jack McCarthy. “We look forward to our continued partnership with the district as it enters the eligibility period.”
The MSBA partners with Massachusetts communities on school design and construction funding. For projects it chooses to support, MSBA typically provides a reimbursement of about 60% of the design and construction costs. Town taxpayers would be responsible for the non-reimbursed costs. Last year, Mayor William Sapelli estimated a new high school would cost $125 million.