Horace Mann staff and students will move to the Lincoln-Eliot building at 191 Pearl Street for the 2025-2026 school year, while the Horace Mann project construction is completed. In addition to the four major school building projects that are currently in design or construction, in February 2024 the city allocated, and the City Council approved, an additional $5.3 Million for a number of smaller, but significant, capital improvement projects across the district. Many of these projects, which include roof replacements, mechanical system improvements, and restroom and other upgrades, are still ongoing. Additional information about these projects is provided in the Conditions and Assumptions section below under “Additional Capital Projects”. These projects help the school system tremendously, but the lack of a more robust operating budget allocation means that our older schools cannot receive building upgrades and/or major repairs that are needed and we are forced into more reactive maintenance rather than preventative maintenance. To help guide continued short- and long-term facility planning for NPS, in the spring of 2023, American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds were used to hire a planning and design consultant to conduct a School Facilities and Enrollment Planning Study for the elementary schools. While the study initially focused on the Underwood and Ward Elementary Schools - the two oldest schools in the district - it was later expanded to include the six remaining elementary schools that have not recently been renovated or replaced. The final elementary school study report includes space utilization information and comparison with space standards, building condition data, and a prioritized ranking for Ward, Underwood, and the other six elementary schools. Following the completion of the Elementary Facilities and Enrollment Planning Study, the district contracted with Raymond Design Associates, an architecture and planning firm, to conduct a similar facilities study of the secondary schools. To date, the firm has collected space utilization data for the secondary schools, mapped it to MSBA space standards, and is documenting high- level building conditions. Once completed, the data can be integrated with the elementary school data to develop recommendations to address long-term facility and enrollment needs.
Links to individual project web pages can be found at Newton Public Buildings - School Projects.
Additional information is also available at Long Range Planning and Building Projects.
Sustainability
Starting with the NECP project, NPS’ first all-electric building, new mechanical systems in major school building projects are fossil fuel free. The Countryside and Franklin Elementary School projects include the first ground-source heat pump (geothermal) mechanical systems in the City. All major school projects are also designed to be ready for solar rooftop and/or parking canopy installations. In addition, new rooftop solar installations at Cabot and Angier Elementary Schools, and new solar parking lot canopies at the Education Center and at Wheeler Road parking lot are in progress. The solar rooftop projects began installation this spring, and the parking lot canopies will be installed over the summer of 2025. These solar projects are being
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