Lynn Classical repairs on schedule

LYNN – With under a month remaining before children throughout the city return to school, Phase 3 of the Lynn Classical High School construction project is moving along right on schedule.Contractors have been working two shifts from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day since students left the school in June, and are just over a week away from completing work to the first- floor lobby and elevator, which would allow faculty and administrators to return to work.Inspectional Services Director Michael Donovan said school employees are expected to return to work in the high school’s main building on Aug. 18, when work in the lobby area is complete.Principal Warren White and his staff have spent the summer working at the Fecteau-Leary School, the former Classical High School and current home to the school’s freshman during construction, located on North Common Street.”We are moving along. Our immediate goal right now is to finish up the work on the first floor in the four stairwells and the elevator lobby,” said Donovan. “The floors have been removed and they are rebuilding the walls in the lobby. The target date to have that complete is Aug. 18, so we will be able to get the administrators back in the school at that time.”As work continues inside the lobby, contractors are finishing up drilling mini-piles into the soil that will support the school’s new concrete slab. Donovan said that drilling could be done as early as today and workers would immediately begin work on the slab.The original concrete support slab was found to be the source of the problem at the 8-year-old school constructed on top of a former landfill, which began sinking into the soft soil several years ago. The contractors that originally built the school failed to drill piles through the landfill and soil into bedrock below, causing the school to settle, resulting in severe structural deficiencies.Construction crews will slim down to one shift per day, at night, on Aug. 25 where they will continue to work on re-building the slab and repairing the first-floor academic wing. Donovan expects that work to conclude in February or March 2009.The second and third floors of the school will remain open beginning Aug. 25 for sophomores, juniors and seniors while freshman will spend the year at the Freshman Academy at the Fecteau-Leary.That program, led by guidance councilor Judith Taylor, has been so successful that White and his staff are discussing the possibility of keeping the freshman academy in tact when all students return to the main building in the fall of 2009.While financial problems and a lack of state funding have prevented significant repairs at other schools this summer, Inspectional Services personnel have completed many small projects at several schools.Donovan said several schools have received new paint jobs and minor repairs, including work at the Callahan Elementary School on O’Callaghan Way.Mayor and School Committee Chairman Edward J. Clancy Jr. praised Donovan for the department’s work at the Callahan School, where they re-built the building’s concrete porch and landscaping.”The Callahan School is an example of progress,” Clancy said. “Look at the difference in appearance in that lawn. They took out all of the weeds and landscaped the whole thing. They did the cement work on the stairs. They have done a lot of work in all of the schools and these small projects have a cumulative effect and it makes a huge difference.”