Administrators return on time to Classical

LYNN – The corridors aren’t quite clean and the construction work is still a bit noisy, but Lynn Classical employees took the first step in returning normalcy to the O’Callaghan Way school building Monday.Principal Warren White and select members of his administrative staff returned to the Classical offices Monday, right in line with Inspectional Services Director Michael Donovan’s timetable.Contractors have been working through the summer, making structural repairs to the school’s first floor corridor, and have completed work on the office and elevator lobby areas.During construction, staff members were forced to work at the Fecteau-Leary School on North Common Street, where the school’s Freshman Academy is housed.”We aren’t quite moved in yet, just my office has moved back in. Next week we hope to have everyone else in the building,” White said. “Right now we are still just confined to my office area, which is really all we need.”By next week, White expects the school’s guidance counselors and faculty to return to the building and begin preparing for the start of school Sept. 3.Although the first-floor lobby and office area will re-open in time for school, construction workers will have the majority of the building’s main floor closed off as they continue to perform work after school hours.Contractors will work second-shift only through the autumn months reinforcing the school’s concrete support slab, the key piece responsible for the structural deficiencies that have plagued the 8-year-old building.Freshman students will remain on North Common Street this school year, while sophomores, juniors and seniors will be able to use the second and third floors of the high school.White will remain in the main building, while guidance councilor Judith Taylor will return for a second year as the acting principal of the Freshman Academy.White said moving people, supplies and records across town twice in one summer is a difficult task, and anticipates there is still plenty of work to be done before the staff can settle back into the new building.”This is not going to happen all at once,” he said. “We are still moving a lot of the records back over here.”Donovan anticipates the current phase of the project will be complete around February or March, and if all goes well, all students should be able to return to the building in the fall of 2009.