By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

While some schools in the southern portion of the state are looking at costly repairs to their rooftops due to snow damage, the Scarborough School Department has asked the town council to amend its capital improvement projects budget by nearly $1 million for new modular classroom facilities at Scarborough’s Middle, Wentworth Intermediate and Eight Corners Primary schools. The request came at the town council meeting last week after what chairman Jeffery Messer called “a long time coming.”

The funds provided would be outside of the normal budget cycle in order to have the modular classrooms available for the beginning of the 2009 school year, Messer explained. 

While some of the outdoor classrooms are replacements for existing modular facilities, others at Scarborough Middle School and Eight Corners Primary are being added to increase classroom space. John Cole, chair of the school board’s capital improvement committee submitted a 10-year study he compiled comparing the square footage of the Eight Corners school in relation to its population with the funding request.

School facilities manager Norman Justice said the board of education sets recommended standards for the square footage per student, and suggests K-2 schools provide 135 square feet per student. According to Cole’s study, Eight Corners was well below the standard in 2007, with 94 square feet per student.

Cole said many future kindergarten students will have to attend either Blue Point or Pleasant Hill Primary, as the Eight Corners building cannot accept any more students in that grade. 

“What we’re talking about is adding two classrooms to Eight Corners,” he said.

 The study also found Scarborough middle school had 151 square feet per student in 2007, which is 14 square feet below the recommended standards. 

Cole presented the council with photographs of a teacher instructing several students in the hallway of the middle school, which councilor Richard Sullivan said should simply not happen. 

 “We all know when we built the middle school it was undersized,” Cole said.

The four classrooms proposed for the Wentworth School are not to satisfy space constraints, but will replace the existing units, which Cole said have reached the end of their useful life. 

Councilor Ronald Ahlquist asked why the modular structures were allowed to fall into a state of disrepair. Cole explained the modular buildings at the Wentworth school, which were built in the 1980s, were only designed to last 10 years.

“They weren’t designed to be here for 20 years, since we were supposed to have a new school in 1993,” said School Superintendent David Doyle.

“If you treat it as temporary, you pay the price, but the design life is 20 years and we have seen some out there longer than that,” said Jeff Snow, a sales representative for Schiavi Homebuilders, a company who constructs the modular classrooms. 

Ann-Mayre Dexter, principal of the Wentworth school, said teachers and students have limited access to the existing modular classrooms due to health concerns. 

“We are seeing an increase in watery eyes and stuffy noses,” she said.

Dexter said teachers who conduct classes there are learning to live with the condition of the buildings by filling in cracks beneath doors and pulling shades over the windows. 

Many of the town council members expressed an interest in touring the existing modular facilities in order to see the necessity first hand.

“The condition of the Wentworth buildings speaks for themselves,” Messer said. “As far as Eight Corners, I am surprised by the numbers and think it puts me even more in favor of approval. It’s not the best solution but probably the best we’re going to do.”

Cole said $40,000 of the $340,000 for the Wentworth classrooms was allotted for removal of two of the four existing structures. 

The remaining two classrooms are currently being used as storage facilities since they are no longer suitable for classes, and will not be replaced. 

The $989,000 budget amendment could be voted on in early May.

“Maybe the second tour I take will be of a new school,” Councilor Michael Wood said.