The School Building Facilities and Maintenance Committee met online recently to discuss several items of concern regarding Somerville’s public schools.

By Jennifer Purcell

On Wednesday, November 29, Somerville’s School Building Facilities and Maintenance Committee met via Zoom to discuss several potential changes and improvements to the city’s schools.

This particular meeting focused mainly on the issues that are currently affecting the public the most. The first Item that was touched upon was Order #22-1528, asking the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management, Rich Raiche, to provide an update on the status of the School Building Systems Feasibility Study.

The most recent update is that after Kennedy’s existing chiller failed, Capital Projects decided to mobilize with a consulting team on the current design. Due to the issue’s complexity, it was decided that they would not be able to begin working on the new chiller until next winter, so the school will have to use the current chiller for another year.

As for updates on the chillers in the Healey School and West Somerville Neighborhood School, they have completed the conceptual designs for both and are progressing into design development of mechanical and roof upgrades. This scope of work will include the roof, chiller, boiler, and control systems replacement.

While all of these changes are important and very much welcome, Committee Chair Ward 5 City Councilor Beatriz Gomez Mouakad expressed frustration as they are long overdue. “Parents are losing trust in our work and our schools,” she stated. “Somerville is becoming known for its school’s failing systems. I don’t think any parent should tolerate disruptions to the school day.”

Edgerly School Improvements for the Winter Hill Community Innovation School

Several of this meeting’s items focused specifically on the changes that they are hoping to make to the Edgerly School. After many students attending the Winter Hill Community Innovation School were temporarily placed at Edgerly back in August of this year due to asbestos and a failing roof, the committee realized that major changes would need to be made to Edgerly in order to properly accommodate them.

Recently, the administration was asked to provide an update on the building’s kitchen equipment and to discuss the plan to serve the Winter Hill Community Innovation School youth and further city programs. Fortunately, it was shared that several electrical upgrades were made as well as plumbing modifications so the kitchen is now deemed usable. Additionally, items of equipment that have long lead times were put on order.

Aside from upgrades to the kitchen, the Committee wants the administration to work with the School Department to discuss emergency plans for at-risk school relocation should anything like this ever happen again. While this will be kept in the committee for now there is no plan in place yet, they are working hard to create one. However, it was decided that for now, a website will be opened that will contain regular updates regarding the Winter Hill school situation, including links to publicly filed documents.

Unresolved Items

There were several more items discussed that Chair Gomez Mouakad opted to keep open and in Committee, which are as follows:

• It was asked that the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management deliver a study showing the steps to de-carbonize mechanical systems in existing school buildings as part of the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) Feasibility Study, and assess potential grants and funding to help accelerate this process. However, they don’t currently have funding to do a separate study for something of the sort.
• They wanted the Director of Infrastructure and Asset management to provide an update on the status of School Building Feasibility Study. This Item was dropped without much discussion because it was mentioned that there will be a meeting on Saturday the 9th to discuss the outcome of this.

However, the Item that prompted the longest discussion out of these three was the Item that suggested that the Commissioner of Public Works should provide quarterly reports to the Committee on any major repairs and 311 work orders in the school buildings. The main question was what they should consider to be a major issue vs. a minor one, given that minor issues could quickly turn into major ones at any point in time. The committee was unable to come to an agreement on this subject, therefore this Item will remain open and be further discussed at a later date.