School left off funding list; Park Ave. slight was a surprise.

PositionLOCAL NEWS

Byline: John Dignam

WEBSTER - School Superintendent Gregory M. Ciardi was surprised that the town didn't make the Massachusetts School Building Authority's list for school construction money for Park Avenue Elementary School.

"I was surprised. It's a building that's energy inefficient with single-pane glass throughout. It's got handicapped-accessibility issues, and it's packed full of kids," Mr. Ciardi said yesterday.

"I was really hoping that we would be competitive."

The MSBA yesterday released its list of 83 schools it had selected as candidates for state school building money. Webster was not on it.

"I think we'll sit down with the assistant superintendent for business, the school principal and maybe a subcommittee of the School Committee and develop a draft plan for moving forward," Mr. Ciardi said yesterday.

"We need a feasibility study on how we can handle the needs of our youngest students (in the elementary school) in the next five to 10 years."

Under a new program for state money for school construction or renovation, school districts had to submit statements of interest detailing building deficiencies as a first step to becoming applicants for funding.

More than 400 statements of interest from 162 school districts were submitted by the July 31 deadline.

Webster filed a statement of interest last spring, which the MSBA accepted for consideration. In August authority representatives toured the school.

On Tuesday, the School Committee accepted a draft five-year capital improvement study in which $10.4 million of $18.7 million in projects were for the elementary school. The largest projects were a total of almost $2 million for the addition of four classrooms, a music room, guidance room and nurse's suite.

The only larger projects in the study were about $2.2 million in mechanical upgrades (digital controls, boilers) and $1.5 million for a new roof at the high school.

Mr...

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