SWAMPSCOTT — The School Committee has taken the first formal step toward addressing long-standing issues at Swampscott Middle School, unanimously voting Thursday to authorize Superintendent Jason Calichman to submit a statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
The vote allows Calichman to submit the application ahead of the state’s April 17 deadline, beginning what Facilities and Maintenance Director Max Kasper described as a lengthy and uncertain process toward potential funding.
The Massachusetts School Building Authority, a state agency that helps communities pay for school construction and major renovations, accepts applications manually through its statement of interest process. A district must first be accepted into the program and undergo multiple phases of feasibility studies and local funding approvals before any project is approved for reimbursement.
Even if accepted, Kasper said the timeline to complete such a project could stretch for years. He pointed to the town’s last school building project at Swampscott Elementary, noting that the process from initial approval to completion took about seven years.
“The timeline is at the end of this calendar year. We would understand if we’d been accepted,” Kasper said. “And then … there’s really like a two-year period that we’re just getting this whole process going — and that’s if we even get accepted on our first time that we’re applying.”
The statement of interest outlines a range of issues within the middle school building, including aging systems and infrastructure that officials across multiple boards and committees have said are no longer meeting students’ needs. The application specifically cites HVAC deficiencies, electrical, plumbing, and accessibility problems, and broader concerns about the building’s overall condition.
Committee members said those issues are not going to go away, regardless of whether the town receives state support.
“As someone who’s been through this … I can’t agree more that this needs to happen,” School Committee member Suzanne Wright said. “We’re going to spend the money with the MSBA or without the MSBA. Because we have failing systems.”
Although there was a general sentiment that the middle school’s building issues need to be resolved, members of the committee emphasized that their vote on Thursday did not commit the town to any spending, and was just the first procedural step in a long process.
“A lot of work has to be done to make sure that everyone is in agreement,” the School Committee’s acting Chair Glenn Paster said. “To make sure that the finance committee is comfortable that we can afford it and make sure we have enough votes to win.”
The future project will require broad coordination across town government and voters. The Select Board will also need to vote on the statement of interest at their next meeting before it can be submitted to the MSBA, and from there, future budgeting and capital projections will go through both committees before it is presented to voters.
“I think all of us sitting up here are completely in agreement on this,” Paster said. “It is really important that the folks who do this moving forward — the Select Board, everybody else — be on the same page.”
Middle school renovations and a potential remodel hold a $100 million placeholder for 2029 in the current draft of the town’s five-year capital improvement plan. Some members of the Select Board have already earmarked this as a priority, even amid difficult budget conversations.
For now, the School Committee’s vote is the first step for Swampscott schools to pursue state assistance, with hopes that state funding will help alleviate some of the budget pressure and move this project forward for students in the near future.
