After considering as many as seven options earlier this year, Scarborough’s School Building Advisory Committee has zeroed in on two options to solve overcrowding in the town’s school system.

One of the final two options is a hybrid between multiple plans the committee had previously considered: instead of building a fourth primary school in town, one of the three current primary schools – all of which serve students in grades K-2 – would be rebuilt under this option. The two left standing would undergo renovations and additions.

The other option under consideration is a unified school for grades K-2. It is a small but potentially significant shift from a K-3 school, which was part of a $160 million proposal that was rejected by voters in 2023 and an option previously considered in the renewed push.

Both options, estimated to cost between $133 and $124 million depending on their final scope, include minor investments in Wentworth School, serving grades 3-5, and major investments in the middle school, which serves grades 6-8.

According to Charlie Peters, committee chair, the first option was devised by a committee member while the K-2 unified school came from a resident via a recent community survey on the project.

“We got a lot of ideas that filtered through the open comment section of that survey,” Peters said at a Town Council and school board workshop last week.

The committee reviewed, and Harriman Architects vetted, over a dozen of respondents’ ideas, he said, and the K-2 school quickly gained traction among committee members.

“Some were not feasible at all, some would never get down to the price we needed to be at, or did not meet enough of the benchmarking criteria for us to consider,” Peters said at the April 2 workshop. “This one was really unique – we looked at this and it gained traction among the group.”

Primary concerns

At its meeting on Monday, the committee focused on refining the option to rebuild one of the three primary schools. By a vote of 15-5, the committee decided to pursue a school designed for 380 students rather than 300 and, by a vote of 18-2, for that to replace Eight Corners Primary School.

The estimated price tag of $133 million to replace Eight Corners with a 380-student school is projected to be $2 million cheaper than rebuilding Blue Point Primary School and $5 million cheaper than rebuilding Pleasant Hill Primary School.

Although cost and location were among the most prevalent reasons some voters cited they were against the 2023 proposal for a consolidated K-3 school, a notable concern was that it did away with the town’s three neighborhood schools.

“We’ve kind of all acknowledged as a committee that Eight Corners carries the least neighborhood feel and also carries the lowest price tag – and it covers most of the benchmarking criteria,” said Alissa Peterson, one of the school board’s representatives on the committee.

Unlike Blue Point and Pleasant Hill, which are located in residential neighborhoods, Eight Corners is located in a commercial hub. Bordered by the likes of Hannaford Supermarket and Mainely Tubs, the school is in close proximity to the heavily traveled corridors of Payne Road and Gorham Road (Route 114).

“It’s in an environment where sidewalks aren’t plentiful, it’s not tucked into a neighborhood,” Peterson continued. “The ability to move that school seems like it will give us the most opportunity to uphold that (neighborhood feel) in a different location.”

Peters agreed. “I kind of share the sentiment that Eight Corners is a weird location for the school: traffic, it’s not safe to walk, doesn’t have the neighborhood feel to it,” he said.

However, Peters noted Eight Corners does sit on the largest plot of land of the three schools, meaning it would have accommodated additions more seamlessly than the Pleasant Hill and Blue Point sites, which are already tight on space.

Middle school debate

The primary schools have been the primary focus in a Scarborough school solution, both in the 2023 proposal and from the start of this year’s effort.

However, the committee quickly realized actions taken at the middle school are just as critical to a successful proposal.

Pleasant Hill was built in 1957, Eight Corners in 1959 and Blue Point in 1965. All three schools received significant renovations in 1993.

Other than Wentworth School, which was built in 2014, the middle school is the district’s youngest building, completed in 1996. It received its first batch of portable classrooms just four years later to accommodate growing enrollment.

Of the 30 portable classrooms across the district, the middle school now plays host to 12.

“I think most of us came in thinking, ‘We have to deal with the primary schools,’ and ‘At the middle school? Yeah, we have to get rid of the portables.'” Peters said at the April 2 workshop. “As we learned more about the middle school, the realities of what that school’s facing, we’ve spent a lot of time iterating on a solution for the middle school.”

The committee has chosen to maintain two versions of middle school improvements: a more expansive and expensive plan for additions and one with a smaller scope and reduced costs.

“What we didn’t want to do was make the decision to reduce costs and reduce scope and then realize, toward the end, we actually need to add it back in and cause a public whiplash at the price,” Peters said.

The committee is targeting a project that costs $130 million or less, an acceptable price tag for most respondents to a resident survey after the failed $160 million proposal in 2023. Based on preliminary estimates, going with the more expensive middle school additions would put the primary replacement option around $133 million while scope reductions could bring that option down to as low as $124 million.

The committee will meet next on Monday, April 14, to further develop the two final options. A new resident survey, focused on the two options, is scheduled to run from April 29 through May 12.

The committee’s goal is to have a final plan ready to propose to the Town Council and school board by the end of June.