Committee Votes to Reroof Aaron Guild School Ahead of Winter Months-September 8, 1972

Meeting under the active leadership of Committee Chairman Ernest Paciorkowski, the Norwood permanent building construction committee voted during its latest session to undertake the immediate reroofing of the Aaron Guild School. The decisive vote came following urgent recommendations from architectural professionals hired to oversee the complex conversion of the fire-damaged former junior high school building into a modern elementary facility. The architects strongly advised the committee to completely execute the roof replacement prior to the onset of freezing winter weather to prevent further weather-related deterioration of the interior classrooms.

Independent Roofing Contract and Skylight Elimination

Chairman Paciorkowski urged prompt administrative attention, pointing out that the critical roofing work must be handled under a separate, independent contract distinct from the major $1.3 million school conversion project. Before preparing the formal roofing contract specifications, committee members and school administrators must first secure official approval from the state School Building Assistance Bureau (SBAB). School officials scheduled meetings with SBAB representatives to review the project scope.

Acting upon a specific motion introduced by committee member Richard W. Kief, the committee voted unanimously to eliminate all skylights from the newly designed roof structure unless architects discover overriding safety code regulations that strictly mandate their retention. Committee members concurred that removing the skylights would significantly streamline the visual appearance of the new roof while simultaneously lowering long-term municipal maintenance costs.

The committee’s vote followed structural recommendations presented by architect James McGrath of the firm Korslund, LeNormand and Quann, who proposed knocking down the damaged third-floor exterior walls down to the second-story level, reframing them entirely, and constructing the new roof from that baseline. McGrath noted that the temporary roof erected the previous autumn to protect the building’s interior had proven entirely inadequate, resulting in visible deterioration across several classrooms and existing skylights. McGrath estimated that the roofing project plans were already 90 percent complete and could be fully ready within a week. He further projected that once the plans cleared the SBAB and went out to bid, the actual physical roofing work could be successfully accomplished in approximately eight weeks, well before winter set in.

Endean Park Junior High Design Revisions and Athletic Field Costs

Shifting attention to the separate $6 million new junior high school project planned at Endean Park, Chairman Paciorkowski announced that sealed bids for the main construction contract would be publicly opened on October 12, with subcontractor bids following in late October rather than September as initially forecasted. Groundbreaking for the major facility is officially anticipated to take place in late October.

However, architect James McGrath delivered some difficult financial news regarding site preparation for the Endean Park campus. Due to a severe local shortage of native topsoil on the property, contractors would need to import roughly 5,170 cubic yards of loam, carrying an estimated price tag of $28,850. Instead of applying the standard six inches of loam to be seeded, McGrath recommended utilizing high-quality grass sod laid over four inches of base loam, which would raise the total cost to $40,465 (an additional increase of $2,200). Superintendent Philip O. Coakley advocated strongly for the sodding alternative, explaining that it would allow three of the school’s athletic fields to be ready for immediate student use by September 1974—coinciding with the targeted opening date of the new school—while saving significant maintenance and seeding expenses in the long run.

The committee also reviewed revised architectural floor plans for the Endean Park project, which featured adjustments to the kitchen-cafeteria layout and a proposed reversal of the administrative offices and the instructional media center to enhance overall building security, an idea originally championed by Richard Kief. While the layout shift would reduce the media center’s footprint by 500 square feet, committee member Joseph P. Olshan requested cost estimates for flooring over the relocated office area to create a two-story layout with additional rooms above, prompting Superintendent Coakley to remark, “We can always use more space.”

Furthermore, committee member Richard Kief raised sharp objections regarding an unannounced specification change made by Health Agent Bartley J. King, who rejected planned plastic piping for the athletic fields’ underground watering system in favor of mandatory asbestos cement pipe. Kief expressed strong frustration that specifications were altered without committee consultation, noting a major distinction between interior residential plumbing codes and exterior athletic grounds watering. The architect was directed to prepare an alternate plan utilizing the plastic piping for committee review, alongside separate alternative plans omitting classroom partitions estimated to cost around $50,000.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger