Plunkett School Roof Project to Begin in Spring
ADAMS, Mass. — Work on the boiler room roof at C.T. Plunkett School is unlikely to start until spring because the ceiling has to be removed.
Adams-Cheshire Regional School District Superintendent Robert Putnam provided the Selectmen with an update on the project during the board's public comment period on Wednesday.
Putnam said Hill Engineers is unable to create an estimate at this point because the complete interior ceiling must first be removed.
"We have attempted to take down a small portion of the ceiling but here the concern is that they want to have a complete understanding of the extent of the condition of the roof before they make any recommendations," he said.
Putnam said initially it was difficult to find a contractor willing to remove the entire ceiling, but Souliere & Zepka Construction decided to take the project.
"It's a difficult project, and it is going to require staging and a number ways of avoiding having anything all onto the extensive piping," he said.
He said the roof will have to stay as is during the winter and work should start in the spring.
"There may be some shoring up the of the roof to make sure nothing collapses due to snowfall," Putnam said.
With the possible closing of one of the two elementary schools looming over the district, the town to allocate $130,000 for the project to better its chances of keeping Plunkett open.
In other business, Berkshire County Education Task Force member Howard "Jake" Eberwein, a dean at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and former Pittsfield superintendent of schools, presented the task force's recent on the status of county education. The report confirmed that enrollment is declining at a more precipitous rate than other parts of the state.
"Coupled with the fact that we have declined over the past 15 years, the reality is we are going to continue to decline," Eberwein said. "We have used four different enrollment projection models and they all basically result in the same conclusion."
The task force will next hire a firm to explore the possibilities of three options for education in the county: do nothing, expand on sharing services between districts, regionalize school districts that are close to each other or shrink the 19 districts in the county down to a single district or three larger ones
"We are going to look at all of those possibilities," he said. "We are going to look at them and examine them from the perspective of does it save us money, what are the educational consequences, what are some of the organizational challenges, regulatory challenges … and the political and social ramifications."
The task force, a purely advisory body, is updating town and school officials around the county on its findings.
Tags: education task force, Plunkett, roof,
