Wilmington Officials Working On Wildwood Project MSBA Request

Wilmington MA

17 March, 2021

5:35 PM

Description

WILMINGTON, MA — Wilmington officials are working on shortening the list of options for a Wildwood Early Childhood Center building project, with the goal of updating the Massachusetts School Building Authority by the end of the month. Superintendent Glenn Brand presented to the Board of Selectmen Monday on the current status of the town's application process. The presentation followed two longer ones before the School and Finance Committees. The state authority, which provides partial funding for school building projects, is planning to do a "senior study" of the Wildwood, potentially leading to providing grant funding. But the authority asked district officials to give them a shorter list of options, by the end of March. "They need to know which options there is no interest in studying," Brand said. The town had initially planned to hold a community survey to narrow down the list, but decided against it due to the options' complexity, Brand said. He put forward building either a pre-K to 3rd grade or pre-K to 5th grade school for the northside of town, eliminating options that would keep the current configuration of buildings or exclude pre-K to K from the school's replacement. The selectmen were largely on board with the options Brand presented. Several, including Selectman Kevin Caira, made clear they wanted Wildwood to be rebuilt as an elementary school. Caira also criticized the decision to present an abbreviated version of the presentation to the Board of Selectmen, rather than the full slideshow given to the prior committees. The presentation to the selectmen is available here from WCTV. The original slideshow is available here. Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or [email protected].