ITEM PHOTO BY OWEN O’ROURKE
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Catherine C. Latham, Marshall Middle School Vice Principal John Pavia, Marshall Vice Principal Stephine Doucette and Lynn School Committee member John Ford, from left, look at one of the new science rooms in the school during a tour on Tuesday.
BY BRIDGET TURCOTTE
LYNN — A Tuesday tour of the new Marshall Middle School, located on Brookline Street, underscored the extensive progress made toward the building’s completion.
“The new school is going to make faculty, students and the community feel better about the education they are receiving,” said Superintendent of Lynn Public Schools Catherine Latham. “New things give people good feelings. The new school will also give our students so many more opportunities to learn.
“The students will be thrilled with the cooking class, sewing class, TV studio, new carpentry shop, graphic design class, computer classrooms, library/media center, well-equipped science labs, bright art rooms and vocal and instrumental music rooms,” Latham said.
The new school building has four floors and is 18,647 square feet, said Owner’s Project Manager Lynn Stapleton of NV5.
Comprised of three buildings (buildings “A”, “B” and “C”), which are all connected, the school is designed for 1,100 students in grades 6 through 8,” Stapleton said.
The project is moving along and developers are expecting a spring completion, rather than the originally anticipated fall completion.
“The project started in the Fall of 2012 and will be finishing April 2016,” Stapleton said.
Building “A” will be the first to be completed, then building “B” and building “C” will follow suit, she said.
Stapleton led Tuesday’s tour accompanied by architect Gene Raymond of Raymond Design Associates.
Raymond said when working with the city to come up with a design for the building, emphasis was placed on the importance of making the large school feel more quaint.
“Just to put it in perspective, Pickering (Middle School) holds 650 students,” he said.
“We wanted to take a big school and (separate it) into smaller clusters,” he said. “Students most of the time will stay within their cluster. It will help students and teachers get to know each other” and will be beneficial for “positive reinforcement.”
Science labs, math, english and other core classes will be located on the second, third and fourth floors, he said. There will be specialized spaces on the first floor.
“The most important thing was trying to break it up so it felt smaller,” he said.
The new school will offer students new classes they weren’t offered before, including home economics classes, sewing, culinary arts programs and updated life skills facilities that include laundry rooms with washers and dryers, storage rooms and separate culinary areas.
Lynn schools “used to have these programs and now we’re bringing them back,” said Latham. “We’re putting in things that make kids want to go to school.”
“By restoring the culinary arts and sewing programs we’re providing more of a well-rounded education,” said City Councilor Brian LaPierre. “It’s (a good balance) of more rigorous classes with fun and interesting skill sets.”
Culinary classrooms feature station sinks, ranges, cooktops, dishwashers and ample storage. They also have demonstration areas.
The window glass on the building is sound attenuating and blocks out the majority of the outside noise. The decision to use the glass was prompted by trains that frequently pass the school, generating a lot of noise.
“The train goes by every 15 minutes but you wouldn’t know it,” said Stapleton.
Several acoustic studies were conducted to find a solution, said Raymond.
“You will hear it but it’s very low level,” he said. “It won’t disturb things.”
“I could not be more thrilled to see the project nearing completion,” Latham said. “It has been a long time coming, but it is just the first of a series of new schools for Lynn.”
Bridget Turcotte can be reached at [email protected].