Summer projects lined up for Lynn ISD

LYNN – The end of school is more than two months away but Inspectional Services Director Michael Donovan already has his summer building projects lined up.”It’s going to be a busy but productive summer,” he said Monday.ISD crews and independent contractors will be laying down new floors in the Ford School and giving an interior facelift to two of the city’s oldest elementary schools: Cobbet and Tracy, which will include cleaning, painting and repair work. Breed Middle School will get new windows and Lynn Vocational Technical Institute will get a new roof funded in part through the state’s School Building Authority program, Donovan said. Breed, Connery, Harrington and Cobbet schools will each be getting a new boiler as well, he said.His biggest project, however, will be reconfiguring and reopening the Ford School Annex in order to bring the entire school administration under one roof.Superintendent Catherine Latham explained previously that the school administration split up after it left a Central Avenue building a few years ago when the rent became exorbitant. Latham, along with the majority of the administrators, moved onto the upper floor of LVTI. The Special Education and Nursing departments went to 113 Broad St. and Security, Attendance and Discipline went to the Fecteau-Leary building on North Common.Donovan said reopening the Bennett Street building, which was closed about five years ago, would allow all the departments to live in one building again.”We have more demo and abatement to do, we’re getting prices to update the fire alarm but I do believe we’ll be ready for September,” he said. “The building was built in ?74, it has a number of years left.”One summer project that won’t be finished by September will be the new windows at Breed, “they won’t be done until October,” he said.Over the summer workers will install new glass windows, replacing the old cloudy Lexicon windows in the classrooms, but Donovan said there will be hallways, offices and the gymnasium left to do. The work that will take place during the school year will be done in the afternoons after school lets out, he added.”It’s going to be a busy summer,” he reiterated. “But hopefully people will be happy with the upgrades.”Chris Stevens can be reached at [email protected].