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This page includes important updates in Manchester School District's work to develop a long-term master plan for school facilities. The District's consultant, SMMA, expects to bring forward the master plan proposal in early 2024. In the meantime, the District is moving forward with the most urgent needs, identified as "priority one."

You can use the project links navigation to find other important information in this project.

Leftfield, the District's project manager for "priority one" projects, will complete monthly reports as well as make a monthly presentation to the Joint School Building Committee, which includes members of the Board of School Committee and Board of Mayor and Aldermen. These documents will be shared both in this updates will be shared in multiple locations, including this page and our important documents page.

• Priority One March Monthly Report

• Joint School Building Committee – April Presentation

With "priority one" projects fully approved, the District is moving forward with the planning phase. As part of this, the District has set a series of informational meetings for the schools directly impacted by upcoming facilities projects. These schools include Wilson, Beech Street and McDonough Elementary Schools as well as all four middle schools. 

The meetings are open to the public, however each one will have a focus on the school that is hosting. The meeting schedule is as follows:

Henry Wilson Elementary School (555 Cedar Street) – Wednesday, January 24 at 5 p.m.

Beech Street Elementary School (333 Beech Street) – Monday, January 29 at 5 p.m.

McDonough Elementary School (550 Lowell Street) – Wednesday, January 31 at 5 p.m.

Hillside Middle School (112 Reservoir Avenue) – Thursday, February 1 at 6 p.m.

Middle School at Parkside (75 Parkside Avenue) – Monday, February 5 at 5 p.m.

Southside Middle School (300 South Jewett Street) – Tuesday, February 6 at 5 p.m.

McLaughlin Middle School (201 Jack Lovering Drive) – Thursday, February 8 at 5 p.m.

You can find our media announcement on these meetings here: https://www.mansd.org/article/1404344.

At the January 9 Board of School Committee meeting, Superintendent Jennifer Chmiel Gillis announced the District received three bids to provide modular classrooms as part of the project, and was recommending the bid be awarded to Triumph.

Also at the January 9 meeting, Superintendent Gillis asked the board to waive policy Fiscal 119, which relates to bidding procedures, for projects that are part of "priority one" of the long-term facilities plan. The Board of School Committee approved this waiver, allowing the District to avoid having to come before the board for approval of every award of a request for proposals as part of this project.

You can find more information on the bids for the modular classrooms, as well as the waiver for Fiscal 119 in the agenda packet for the January 9 meeting (see pages 1-4).

– January 8, 2024

Following a request for proposals (RFP) in December for modular classrooms, the District released an RFP seeking a consultant to serve as the "owner's project manager."

The owner's project manager, known in the industry as an OPM, would lead the construction project for the District, working to ensure the District's best interests are met. This is different than a Construction Manager, and in fact, the selected OPM will likely help the District select a construction manager.

The RFP for the owner's project manager was released on January 5 and will close on January 19. That can be found on the District's request for proposals page.

– January 5, 2024

On Tuesday, December 5, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen gave final approval for $290 million in bonding for facilities work in the Manchester School District, clearing the way for "priority one" work to begin.

The vote followed project approval by the Board of School Committee in mid-November and initial approval by the Aldermen later that month. In detail, the priority one recommendations include:

• Wilson closing: Henry Wilson Elementary School will close at the end of the current school year. Students and staff would be split between Beech Street School and McDonough Elementary School for the start of the upcoming 2024-2025 school year. 

• New elementary: Construction will begin on a new elementary school near Beech Street School starting in fall 2024. 

• Middle schools: Hillside and McLaughlin Middle Schools will receive fifth graders for the first time starting in fall 2024, and all four middle schools would receive renovations and additions to accommodate additional students and better serve the “team” model that is currently used.  

• Temporary modular classrooms: New temporary modular classrooms will be placed at Beech Street, McDonough, Parkside, Southside, McLaughlin and Hillside to accommodate additional students and facilitate the construction process.

• High school site: Initial work to identify a site for a new, comprehensive high school.

You can find the presentation to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, made on November 21, by clicking here. You can read our news release on this vote by the Aldermen here: https://www.mansd.org/article/1366511.

– December 2023

On Monday, August 28, SMMA and district leadership will present recommendations for Priority One schools to the Board of School Committee. The Priority One recommendations include:

• Status of Wilson Elementary School

• Completing middle school transition to 5-8 model

• Preliminary site location for new high school

The recommendations are detailed in a message from Superintendent of Schools Jennifer Chmiel Gillis: Update on Long-Term Facilities Planning.

You can also review the slides containing the recommendations here: August 28 presentation.

The recommendations will be presented during a special meeting on Monday, which will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chambers at City Hall. The meeting will be broadcast on Manchester Public Television Channel 22 and online at https://www.manchestertv.org/22.

– August 2023

SMMA has built an online dashboard for our long-term facilities planning project. You can access the dashboard at http://mansd-mp.org/index.html. The dashboard contains detailed information on assessments of school buildings that have been completed. It will continue to be updated as SMMA continues assessments and analysis on school buildings.

– August 2023

This spring and summer, we held a series of workshops to gather initial input and develop guiding principles for our long-term facilities planning process.

For those who are not able to take part in the live visioning sessions, you can take a quick survey to make an impact on the master planning process. Before you take the survey, we recommend looking over this recap of the visioning session process.

Once you've read the recap, you can take the survey on Survey Monkey by clicking this link.

– July 2023