Science classes at the Bromfield School are struggling to work around “two empty, torn-up rooms,” because the school received no acceptable bids for the plumbing work to renovate those rooms over the summer, Superintendent Linda Dwight told the School Committee this week. With two of the four science labs out of service, she said, teachers are relocating classes as best they can.
The only bid on the plumbing job, Dwight said, came in at $121,000, nearly four times what it cost to plumb the other two labs last year. As a result, plumbing for the project has been put out to bid again, with new bids expected next week.
Even if more competitive bids come in, Dwight said, she expects costs to be higher than those for the lab renovations last year because this year’s labs require more concrete drilling for plumbing. She asked the School Committee to appropriate between $50,000 and $100,000 in additional funds—above the $175,000 already approved—so that any reasonable plumbing bid can be accepted promptly. Otherwise, bids for other aspects of the project might expire while plumbing holds up everything else, which she called “a disastrous situation.”
Citing the detrimental effect of the delay on Bromfield’s science curriculum, School Committee member SusanMary Redinger moved that the board approve up to $100,000 in additional money for the renovations, to be followed by a “serious review of the procurement process” afterward. “We can’t afford a misstep like this in the future,” Redinger said.
This additional money, like all the other costs for the science lab renovations, will come from the Devens fund, money that MassDevelopment pays the Harvard schools to educate students from Devens.
Dwight said she hopes the project will be done in December.
