Members present: Staff Present: Keith Parent
Reed Leberman, Chair Dave Goyette

Jo Carpenter
Robert Demers Public: Tom Rideout of the Berlin Reporter
Jeff Hill
Kathleen Kelley


1. 6:30 p.m. Reed called the meeting to order at the Gorham Middle High School Library

2. Bob Demers motioned to accept the September 9, 2004 meeting minutes as amended, seconded by Jo Carpenter (change Roger to Robert Demers).

3. Tour of the Gorham Middle High School- 63,000 sq. ft. total space with problems ranging from window leakage, mechanism failures, exterior wall re-pointing, storage problems, small parking lot, stress cracks in wall, cracks in chimney, gym floor buckle, tile shower walls cracking, roof leakage, kitchen un-certifiable, ventilation problems in numerous places in building, roof failures, temporary shoring of roof, etc. These failures have been repeatedly reported to the school board in reports dating 1998 and most recently in the Accreditation Report.

4. Keith is responding to the 80 items of the accreditation report this week and soon will know if we are on probation (at risk for loosing accreditation of the high school).

5. The committee discussed priorities and approaches. As we discussed earlier, focus group discussions with teachers, parents, town officials and others is on the urgent list. We need to ask each group to identify those items that they want preserved in their community school, what features are required in a new high school, and what features would be nice to add to prepare our students for the twenty-first century. We also need to be open about $11 million projected (similar) costs associated with each of the three options:
¬ Ed Fenn renovation and GMHS reconstruction on site
¬ Ed Fenn renovation and new GMHS construct on site
¬ Ed Fenn renovation and new GMHS off site

6. There was no consensus on starting a subcommittee to look at only the Ed Fenn School renovations.

7. There was consensus that school improvements must be presented and coordinated with the town general capital improvement budget. There was consensus that we should go to the next GSB meeting and get clarification about whether we can have public meetings to gather information and what specifically the expectations of the GSB are in terms of reporting.

8. Next Meeting – September 28, 2004 at 6:30 – 8:30 in Littleton – Building Better Buildings at Lower Costs.

Please note: We’ll be departing from the Ed Fenn School promptly at 5:15 pm.



Adjourn (9:30 p.m.)