Schools to open amid repairs

A classroom ceiling fell at a Swampscott elementary school, the stench of mold carries from the administrative offices into the lobby at Gloucester High School , the third floor of Peabody High School is being gutted, and the field house at Beverly High School is closed for another month.

As another school year begins on the North Shore, students may be sidestepping workers who have been called in to repair a litany of problems at aging schools in Swampscott, Gloucester, Peabody, and Beverly.

School was delayed about a week for 200 students at the Machon Ele-mentary School in Swampscott, where an 80-year-old ceiling buckled and collapsed Monday. Upon inspection, school officials declared the building off-limits, and after getting the advice of an engineer, announced they would replace four classroom ceilings on the second floor.

The Machon School, which was supposed to open last Tuesday, is now tentatively scheduled to reopen Wednesday. Superintendent Brian Coughlin said temporary classrooms have been created in the first-floor art and music rooms, and library. It will take about a month to reconstruct the ceilings on the second floor, which has been closed, Coughlin said. All the work will be done while the children are not in school.

"Massachusetts has some of the oldest schools in the country," said George Cruz, an architect for Flansburgh Associates, a Boston firm that has designed schools in Salem, Beverly, and Ipswich.

Cruz said many schools built in the state in the 1960s and '70s are plagued by roof, window, electrical, and mechanical problems. "We're finding that buildings from the '60s and '70s weren't designed in the best quality, and a lot of the main issues are coming to light 30 years after the fact," he said.

At Beverly High School, administrators are spending more than $1 million this fall to address physical problems that prompted the New England Association of Schools and Colleges to put the school on probation.

The money is being spent to repair the field house roof and the heating system, and to replace leaking water pipes in the library. The city has committed another $250,000 this year to fix bathrooms in the school, and to renovate the photography lab and auditorium.

"I think what the NEASC is looking for is for us to be making significant progress in addressing the deficiencies of the building, and we think that this is a very good effort on our part," said Beverly school superintendent James Hayes.

At Peabody High School, workers are halfway through a $16 million project to replace the schools' windows and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system. Workers also have installed two new boilers, allowing the 34-year-old school to change from electrical to gas heating and cooling.

"It is a disruption and I don't want to play that down, but people are dealing with it very, very nicely," said Peabody school superintendent Nadine Binkley, referring to the 30-month project.

In recent years, temperatures have dipped to 60 degrees in the building during the winter, forcing students to wear jackets in classes.

Since last year, workers have replaced half of the classroom ceilings, and installed new air conditioning and heating ducts on the school's second floor and in the cafeteria and library. During that time, students who took classes on the second floor were shifted to 14 modular classrooms behind the building.

This year, the third floor will be gutted and classes that would normally be held there will be moved to the modular classrooms. Peabody High School principal Patrick Larkin said the project will be completed next fall, when work in the auditorium and field house is finished.

In Gloucester, workers will arrive later this fall at the high school, where mold in the administrative offices, and leaky roofs in the science, vocational, cafeteria, and auditorium wings prompted a warning last May from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

The building, which was built in 1938 and renovated in 1995, has been plagued by air circulation and roof problems since the 1995 renovations. In 1999, the city spent $1.5 million to fix ventilation problems and repair the auditorium roof.

Assistant Superintendent Brian Tarr said the district has hired a consultant to assess the roofs, and he expects a report detailing the cost of the repairs this week. Tarr also said a plan for correcting mold problems is expected this month from the state Department of Public Health.

"This is a priority to get this done," Tarr said. "We brought in professionals to get their advice and we're going to follow the corrective action plans recommended."

Steven Rosenberg can be reached at rosenberg@globe.com.