Extended voting process leads to delayed start date for new Revere High School development

By Taylor Giuffre-Catalano

 During the December 20 meeting of the Revere School Committee, Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Dianne Kelly, explained an updated timeline of the development of a new Revere High School.

“In terms of a new high school update,” Dr. Kelly opened, “…on December 12, the City Council voted to move the approval of schematic designs to a ways and means subcommittee meeting.” She explained that this updated voting meeting will not occur until “after the New Year,” which means that Revere Public Schools “would be missing the December 28 MSBA submission deadline.”

Dr. Kelly added, “We’ve accepted that reality, and we are going to continue to do our work and move forward with the support of the Mayor’s Office and everybody else to continue working toward this project.” She explained that the “next steps” are “clarifying the funding for the project,” which involves “going back to the City Council with some more specific information.”

The “biggest challenge that we face right now,” explained Dr. Kelly, “is that we won’t have a funding agreement with MSBA until the design is approved [by the City Council].” She continued, “Since what we were hoping to submit at the end of this month won’t get submitted until the end of April, that means we most likely won’t have a funding agreement until around June.”

This challenge “pushes the timeline out” and raises the question: “Do we just let that timeline lapse– in which case we would be finished with the project a year later– which would have some impact on the budgeting and the finances? Or, do we try to push through– in which case we would have to try to come up with some money as a City– in order to continue that work without the funding agreement?”

In the latter option, Dr. Kelly explained, the City would be “fronting some funding” so that development partners, Perkins Eastman, Left Field, and Consigli, “can continue their work between now and April.” She noted, “We met with the Mayor’s Office on Monday about this. We’re going to meet with them again on January 9, and we should have a lot more information by then on where we stand, what exactly the next steps are, and which of those two scenarios are going to be the best for the City and best for the students.”

Dr. Kelly concluded, “It definitely felt like a little bit of a setback. But, as I said to the Building Committee in a meeting last Thursday: this is a hurdle that we didn’t anticipate, but we will overcome it. We are a resilient group. Our kids our resilient, our city is resilient, and no matter what, this will end up being a fantastic school. Something that we can all be proud of, something our students will thank us for, and something the City Council can be proud of.”