Tuesday, December 22, 2009

School waiver problems arise plus, what's this about a lawsuit?

The Concord School District must reapply to the state Dept. of Education for new waiver applications to build new schools on the Kimball and Conant parcels, according to sources.
Not 24 hours after voting to demolish both Kimball and Conant elementary schools, the district found out that waivers it had requested and received were null and void, since they were based on plans to renovate the two schools, not demolish them. Since the schematic design for the new schools are completely different than the designs for the renovated schools, new waivers must be put in place (One person has already commented: "How can we trust this gang to get three buildings done on time and on budget, when they can't even get even shoot straight i.e. put in the proper paperwork?").
Matt Cashman, the director of facilities for the school district, reportedly sought new waiver applications today. The DOE will then have to approve the new waivers for both of the sites. According to the DOE, new elementary schools should be built on at least 10 acres of land. The School district sought waivers to this regulation since Conant is on 8.7 acres and Kimball is on 2.8 acres.
Dr. Virgina Barry is the head of DOE and has been since June of this year. She granted the original waiver but is accepting comments about the new building waiver, if residents feel that demolition is not appropriate due to size or historic preservation.
Readers can email comments to her at virginia.barry@ed.state.nh.us.

And what's this about a lawsuit?
According to sources, there are rumors floating around that at least two members of the community have filed a lawsuit against the state Dept. of Education concerning the waivers, in an effort to halt the demolition of the Kimball Elementary School. The lawsuit was filed Monday morning. I'll have more information about this as it becomes available.

3 comments:

Joe said...

Man, the two schools I attended as a kid are going away. Sad.. (Kimball and Walker)

Interesting History about Kimball, and sorry if this came up before, but it was originally built in 1905 for 90,000 dollars. Adjusted for inflation that comes to just over two million. Fast forward to today, the price is ten times more!

I don't live in Concord anymore, but my retired mother does, and I worry the price for all this is going to break her.. What about others in a similar situation?

There's nowhere near enough money for this now and especially down the road. Madness.

Anonymous said...

THIS could be a game changer. Lets hope our school board errs on the side of caution and not plunge ahead.

Tony said...

I don't know if it is a game changer or not, but who knows ...

Yeah Joe, many of us feel the same. It's ridiculous.