City hoping new Pickering will be on state list

LYNN – Local educators promised a new Pickering Middle School will be among the public school building projects submitted to the state this spring even as they hedged bets on predicting whether Pickering will survive the School Building Authority’s selection process.”I’m cautiously optimistic: School Building Authority and Lynn officials have been working pretty close together,” said School Committee member Charlie Gallo.School Superintendent Catherine Latham said the city will make a pitch to get the 97-year-old school included on the state project list before the April 11 deadline set by the Authority.?”I am hopeful, but I would not guess on Lynn’s chances of approval this year. The Massachusetts School Building Authority has a daunting task to evaluate and prioritize statements of interest from districts across the state,” Latham said in an electronic mail statement.State tax dollars are a crucial element in new public school projects: The authority has committed to paying 80 percent of the $92 million Marshall Middle School project’s cost.But access to building money is extremely competitive – authority Director John McCarthy last December rejected the city’s application to build a new Pickering, noting Lynn’s application was among 201 submitted in 2012 to the Authority.”The (MSBA) identifies the school facilities that have the greatest and most urgent need based on an assessment?” McCarthy wrote in the rejection letter sent to the city.With Latham and Gallo as his guides, McCarthy toured Pickering last year to get a first-hand look at its peeling ceilings and water-stained stairwells.In this year’s authority application, city officials will stress several major problems in Pickering, including needed roof, boiler, window and heating and ventilation equipment and “severe overcrowding,” according to a letter drafted for School Committee review last month.”Pickering is one of several schools with a physical structure not conducive to the way we teach and learn today,” Gallo said.The authority last year praised city efforts to build a new Marshall, noting in an April statement how the 91-year-old school “suffers from deficiencies in mechanical, electric and plumbing systems.”A new Marshall is scheduled to open on Brookline Street in September 2016 with construction set to begin this year. City officials will get prices in April on initial work involved in the new school’s construction, said city Inspectional Services Director Michael Donovan.He said the city Traffic Commission will review a proposal to make Brookline Street between Empire and Chatham streets one-way during the hour before the start of school and at the end of the school day. Other local schools, including Harrington, located on Friend Street, have one-way restrictions on school days.Even as they discuss building a new Pickering, committee members have looked at space shortages and aging building conditions in Cobbet, Tracy and other older, local schools. Elementary school needs are not lost on Latham, who is currently evaluating kindergarten class size enrollments with an eye on overcrowding that prompted the city to open an early childhood center last year.”We have a great need for new buildings, but we are but one of a number of very needy communities,” she said.