Scarborough is once again considering rebuilding the Wentworth Intermediate School.

The Board of Education is expected to approve a school building committee at its Nov. 20 meeting. The committee would be comprised of Scarborough residents, board of education members, town councilors, school administrators and teachers, said school Superintendent David Doyle.

“We are looking to deal with the deficencies at the Wentworth School,” Doyle said.

A referendum for a $38.3 million bond to rebuild the school went before Scarborough voters in 2006. Voters defeated that referendum, which was coupled with a $16.6 million bond to expand and renovate the middle school.

A new project for Wentworth would not differ from the old project, but Doyle said he did not have specifics as it is in the early stages of development.

Doyle said school officials have decided to pursue improvements at Wentworth first. He said a proposal for Wentworth, where 730 students in grades three through five attend school, would likely appear on the ballot alone this time.

The building was built in the 1950s with single pane windows and an insufficient heating system, he said. Radon has also been detected in the utility tunnels below the ground. Doyle said the school needs to be expanded and the repair list is lengthy, so building a new school would be more cost effective. A new school would also bring the school up to fire and safety codes. Pursuing Wentworth at this point is a higher priority because of its problems, Doyle said.

“I definitely feel those issues need to be addressed,” said Board of Education member Jacquelyn Perry. “I have a friend, a longtime resident whose children went through the building and he once said to me that he would be more than willing to help with any project because it’s the cleanest dump that he’s ever seen.”

In recent years Scarborough has replaced rugs, put in a new boiler and kept up with routine maintenance, but it’s not enough, Doyle said.

“It’s probably twice as costly to maintain the building in the long term just with heat alone,” Doyle said. “It’s not efficient, and we spend a lot of money that could be used elsewhere.”

The building committee will work with Harriman and Associates to develop a plan to present to the Town Council with the hopes of getting the question to replace the school on a 2009 referendum.

The committee would also compare the cost between renovating the school or tearing it down. This was done prior to the 2006 defeat and the study recommended building a new school, Doyle said.

If approved, the committee and board of education would develop final plans for the building with a target for breaking ground in the summer of 2010. That would put the school on track to be completed by 2012, Doyle said.

Scarborough has three kindergarten through second-grade schools. Wentworth is the only intermediate school.

A new school would be built on the existing property, eliminating the need to purchase new land, Doyle said.

That helps Scarborough because, unlike the new White Rock Elementary School being built in Gorham where the state is paying for most of the $25 million cost, the town doesn’t usually qualify for state grants for building projects.

The Maine Department of Education ranks schools based on need and Scarborough is usually ranked too high, Doyle said. Usually rankings of one through 10 get state funding approval. The state ranked Gorham 10th. Wentworth has been raked in the low 60s, Doyle said.

“We have applied for those numbers in the past,” Doyle said. “The state usually receives applications for 60 projects and picks the top 10. We usually are unsuccessful.”