SWAMPSCOTT — The new Swampscott Elementary School, a $98 million project that is on time and on budget, has opened to more than 850 students and staff.
The new school, built on Whitman Road at the site of the former Stanley Elementary School, will serve as a combined K-4 school for the town, merging the Stanley, Hadley, and Clarke schools into one.
“This is incredibly exciting,” Superintendent of Schools Pamela Angelakis said. “It is so gratifying for our students to be able to learn and our educators to teach in this state-of-the-art facility.”
There are two wings to the three-story building – one for grades K-2 and the other for grades 3-4, with separate entrances – with shared space in the middle that houses the cafetorium, gym, library, and main office. Though 150,000 square feet, the building has the feel of a much smaller school, which is exactly what the School Building Committee envisioned.
“It doesn’t look as big as it is,” said Suzanne Wright, a School Committee member and School Building Committee chair. “It’s beautiful, simple, and timeless.”
The school opens with seven classrooms in each grade and about 735 students. The kindergarten classrooms are 1,100 square feet, compared to 900 square feet for grades 1-4.
The color scheme – blue, yellow, and green – is meant to symbolize water, sand, and the woods. The building also includes:
- A cafetorium that can hold 450 students, with an on-site kitchen, allowing for Swampscott Elementary students to enjoy a hot lunch cooked on site for the first time ever.
- A two-story library/media center, K-2 on the first floor and 3-4 on the second.
- A 9,000-square-foot gym that can be split into three sections with a basketball court in each. There are eight baskets total in the gym, as well as a Lü technology panel that allows for interactive learning.
- Band and chorus rooms.
- An art room in each wing.
- An innovation center for arts and STEM.
- All special education services in one site.
- An outdoor classroom.
- A mural painted by students from RAW Art Works in Lynn.
- An extended-day program run by the Lynch/Van Otterloo YMCA.
- In order to further create a small-school environment, there are neighborhoods, which include four classrooms that share flex space, allowing for collaboration and interaction among teachers and students.
- In front of the school, there is a town field that will be used for recess and physical-education classes, a basketball court, and a community playground. There is a school playground in the back of the building.
“It has everything we need and more,” Angelakis said. “I couldn’t be happier with the final product and am so grateful for the tireless work of so many people who made it happen.”
In order to alleviate traffic in the area, school will start at 7:50 a.m. and be dismissed at 2:10 p.m., while nearby Swampscott Middle School will start and end a half-hour later.
The School Building Committee met for the first time in November 2018, four years after a proposed school-building project did not receive the required two-thirds majority at Town Meeting. At that first meeting, members discussed what the future of education in Swampscott looks like, what caused the first vote to fail, and how they would need to address those issues, said Wright, who worked closely throughout the process with Max Kasper, director of facilities for both the town and Swampscott Public Schools.
“It comes down to how Swampscott wants to educate kids over the next 50 to 100 years,” she said. “Education was at the forefront of every decision.”
Lori Sanborn will serve as principal, with Jay Knowles serving as assistant principal and Mary Powers serving as dean of students.
The Massachusetts School Building Authority, which will provide the town with $34 million in funding for the project, invited the town into the eligibility phase in December 2017. A feasibility study was authorized in 2019 and the project went into schematic design in 2020.
Town Meeting approved the project in September 2021 and Swampscott voters authorized a debt-exclusion override by a 65-35% margin in October 2021.
The architect was Lavallee Brensinger, while CTA Construction was the general contractor and LiRo-Hill was the project manager. A groundbreaking was held on Dec. 13, 2022, and work commenced in January 2023.
“There was a lot of visioning with the superintendent and the staff to make sure the building is organized the way they are going to teach,” said Leigh Sherwood, principal at Lavallee Brensinger. “We discussed the four areas most important to them: education, site and traffic, sustainability, and community.”
One of the ways sustainability was addressed is the use of more than 80 underground geothermal wells that provide heating and cooling. It is a 100% electric building with solar panels on the roof.
“It’s approaching a net-zero energy building,” Sherwood said. “It’s a durable building with very low maintenance.”
Pat Tompkins, principal at CTA Construction, said the leadership provided by the School Building Committee led to a smooth project.
“It’s a pleasure to work with anyone who has a solve-the-problem-first attitude, as opposed to assessing blame. That’s a breath of fresh air for us,” he said. “You can’t underestimate the role of the superintendent and the building committee and Max, setting the tone for the project,
and holding people accountable while being fair. With a 150,000 square-foot school, things come up along the way.”
Paul Kalous led the LiRo-Hill team that served as project manager.
“The willingness of the town to make important timely decisions kept everything moving forward,” he said. “That’s an enormous factor in keeping the project on schedule.”
Almost six years after the School Building Committee’s first meeting, the finished product makes all the work worthwhile, Wright said.
“It feels really good to be delivering this to the students, the teachers and the town. They deserve it,” she said. “No one realized what we didn’t have until we have it.”
Classes started last week. There will be a grand-opening event for the community on Sept. 15 at 10 a.m.
