State nixes request to soundproof Beachmont School

REVERE – Beachmont School students will have to keep tuning out noise from jetliners landing at Logan Airport now that the state has rejected a city request for money to soundproof the school.Massachusetts Port Authority officials told Mayor Thomas Ambrosino the agency only provides money to pay for soundproofing windows in buildings located along Logan flight paths.?Unfortunately, Massport was adamant that it does not provide any funding at all for capital improvements within a municipality beyond its carefully regulated window soundproofing program,” Ambrosino told councilors.Ward 1 Councilor James Kimmerle proposed the new roof mindful that Beachmont is slated to do double duty in the 2008-2009 academic year educating students from surrounding neighborhoods and 400 Paul Revere School students.The city has given state School Building Authority officials a commitment to build the new Paul Revere by mid-summer 2009 in time to open the new school for the 2009-2010 school year.Meeting the deadline means the city must start work on the school this year. Before work can start the city needs to take six land parcels through a legal process called eminent domain.Shifting Paul Revere students to Beachmont also eases the pressure on citywide public school overcrowding in combination with a proposal to redraw school district boundaries.Superintendent Paul Dakin has School Committee permission to assign new students who live north of Squire Road to the Lincoln School.There is a space surplus in the school but Whelan and McKinley are over enrolled. Students will be allowed to attend Whelan if they have a sibling attending the first through the fourth grade in Whelan.The committee on Carol Tye?s recommendation is also encouraging McKinley parents to send their children to Lincoln.Mayor Thomas Ambrosino wants to spend $1.8 million to acquire six properties adjacent to Paul Revere to assemble a site for the new school.The city has state loan and grant commitments for $16.1 million of the project?s estimated $18.5 million price tag. The city will have to borrow the remainder of the money. In a bid to keep the price from rising, Ambrosino urged councilors last month to shelve their request to include a red brick façade in the Paul Revere design.He said the proposed red masonry block exterior should cost significantly less than a brick building front.