NORTH SHORE – The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) board of directors played Santa Friday, agreeing to accept 22 school districts, including three on the North Shore, into its 2025 assessment process that could result in the state paying hundreds of millions of dollars for new schools.
Approved were Whittier Regional Vocational, Triton Regional and Ipswich’s Doyon Elementary. The MBSA vote could save the 11 municipalities in the Whittier regional district millions to build a new regional vocational high school.
In addition, the towns of Ipswich, Newbury, Rowley and Salisbury could also benefit from about 50 percent state money to the rebuilding of Triton Regional Middle and High schools and building a new Ipswich Doyon Elementary.
Including Whittier, which had its plans for a $446 million new school shot down by its governing municipalities this year, means the state is willing to consider a new proposal to relocate the school to the Northern Essex Community College’s Haverhill campus and integrate the two academic programs. Dr. Lane Glenn, NECC president, attended the MSBA board meeting.
Triton, which is in dire need to rebuild its 50-year-old middle and high schools, had been turned down by the MSBA the last two years to be eligible for the funding program.
Triton Supt. Brian Forget said the vote to include the schools will avoid the need to continue investing in “band-aid repairs and solutions that do not provide a facility that meets the needs of our students and community.”
“We have been working together with our town officials since 2019 on a solution for the well-documented needs at our secondary campus. I am thrilled with today’s supportive vote by the MSBA Board to partner with us as it will make the right solution possible,” Forget wrote in an email.
Ipswich plans to combine two existing schools, Winthrop and Doyon, into one new building on the Doyon site.
The state legislative delegation, Sen. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, and Rep. Kristin Kassner, D-Hamilton, told the MSBA board they support all three projects.
The MSBA process is not speedy to design and manage a process that will create schools to last the next half century. Beginning early in 2025, the state authority will work in the first phase of 270 days with the school districts, the towns, selected architects and builders to assess whether the district can manage and fund such a large capital project.
Having worked on the project for the last three years, Forget believes Triton is ready to move quickly in the initial phase. The school district has set aside the $1.5 million for the feasibility study, has completed an assessment of the building’s needs by an outside contractor and has established a capital projects subcommittee of the Triton School Committee that includes Alecia Greco, Christine Kneeland and Michael Colburn, the chairs of the SelectBoards for each town.
Forget hopes that the plans for a new building and approval of a projected $172 million in bonds to pay for it can be voted on by the town at the ballot box and at Town Meeting in the spring of 2027.
In Ipswich, the school committee estimates that a new Doyon school would cost the town about $60 million.
If MSBA approves the design and plan for the schools, it will contribute about 50 percent of the total costs.
Whittier’s move to the community college campus could open new funding sources for what is expected to be an expensive new vocational school. The community college system has other state funding sources, which might benefit the cities and towns, many of which are strapped financially.♦
