FARMINGTON – The Mallett School Building Committee is hoping for a good turnout at tomorrow evening’s presentation on the concept for the new elementary school. The meeting, which is scheduled for Sept. 18 at 7 p.m. in the Mallett School gymnasium, will be followed by a straw poll on the design.
The meeting will be similar to the one conducted on June 27, which polled the audience on whether they approved of the selection of the current school campus for the new facility. The vast majority of the nearly 100 residents present voted in favor of keeping Mallett School at its present site. Other choices, discarded previously by the building committee, included moving the building to the Cascade Brook School campus.
The state Department of Education formerly approved the site selected for the school last week.
Those present at tomorrow’s meeting will be treated to an electronic presentation of the plan, allowing for different 3-dimensional views of building. According to Assistant Superintendent Susan Pratt, the program actually will let those present “fly through” the digital school.
“It actually allows you to look at it from any angle,” Pratt said.
The latest designs call for a two-story building, with kindergartners on the first floor with the library, gymnasium and other specialty facilities. First, second and third graders would all have their main rooms on the second floor. The younger first graders would access their areas through designated stairways, separate from the older children.
Externally, the architects are recommending a smaller second floor on top of the first, making the building seem shorter and less imposing, and therefore more welcoming to young children.
Recent events, including the Maine Historical Society’s concerns over the destruction of a 19th Century home which sits on a formerly-proposed Perham Street egress, have made the building committee move toward a new campus layout. The new plan would create a vehicle traffic route which would enter via Middle Street, curve around the west and north sides of the school, and exit onto Quebec Street. The position and layout of the school would be altered, making room for a separate, circular bus loop in front of the building which would enter and exit onto Middle. This would keep buses and passenger cars away from each other, and away from the playgrounds to the east of the building.
The straw poll is non-binding but both the building committee and state will be looking at the results and the number of those in attendance as a barometer of public interest, Pratt said. The DOE will consider the building plan next, similar to the recently-approved review of the site.
“I do hope we have a good turnout,” Pratt said, noting that the Parent-Teacher Association would be meeting beforehand that evening.
The building committee is looking at a local referendum vote on the entire project on Nov. 20, after the national election. If the project is approved, the vast majority of all money spent previously, on architect fees and engineering studies, and throughout the construction process will be borne by the state.
If approved by the DOE and public, the new school could open in September 2010. The old building would remain in use throughout the construction process, and then torn down following its completion.
The presentation and straw vote begins at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 18, in the Mallett School gymnasium.
