Page 2 THE EVERETT ADVOCATE – FRiDAy, OCTObER 9, 2026 OVERCROWDING | FROM PAGE 1 ing services in hallways and staircase landings. Students in need of special services are being asked to learn in limited spaces. Teachers have done an incredible job making use of space, but there’s come a point in time when asking them to make do is not enough. We’re at that point.” He also called the project generational and one which will enhance property values in the city because a good school system attracts new residents. They do and communities often build new schools or rehabilitate old ones to do just that, often because a neighboring community has already done so. In recent years, Swampscott built a new High School to keep up with Marblehead, and Wakefield is building a new High School to keep up with Saugus. “We need classroom space,” Hart added. “We needed it yesterday. It’s at a critical stage and we’re ready to act,” a reference to plans to convert 350,000 square feet of the old High School, 548 Broadway, into a Middle School for 7th and 8th graders. There are also plans to move the School Department’s administrative offices there and consolidate all preschool classes, including those now at 548 Broadway and the Adams School, to the Devens School. Current tenants in the building, such as the Eliot Family Resource Center, will have to be moved. “I don’t have a simple million. Wakefi eld’s new High School, set to open in January two years after a cost was determined and construction began, costs approximately $220 million. Another advantage would be to free up some land for green space at the back of the building and install underground parking. Costs could be covered Pictured from left, School Committee Vice Chairperson Marcony Almeida Barros, Perkins Eastman design consultant Abie Khatchadourian, Mayor Robert Van Campen, School Committee Chairperson Samantha Hurley, School Superintendent William Hart, Ward 2 Councillor Stephanie Martins and City Councillor Holly Garcia at the Parlin School. answer for that,” Van Campen confessed about where they and other tenants might go. “My priority is to build a new Middle School and see where the pieces fall from there.” He also mentioned that Parlin was once a Junior High School. The former Pope John XXIII High School, 888 Broadway, but mostly facing Lafayette Street, which was studied as a possible site for the new Middle school, but found to be too small, will be considered as an at least temporary home for Eliot. Hart also went over how overcrowding in K-8 neighborhood schools has resulted in lunches having to be spread out from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., limited space for art, performing arts, accelerated classes and small learning groups, among other things, and how a new 7th and 8th grade Middle School will enable those activities, as well as foster afterschool clubs for students in those grades. It will also enhance professional development by bringing teachers for those grades together to collaborate. He also said having a citywide Middle School will be an interim step in easing the transition for students from neighborhood schools to High School. The transition will free up 14 classrooms at the Lafayette School, 13 at the Madeline English, 12 each at Parlin and Keverian and 10 at Whittier. Sixth grade will not be included in the new Middle School. Hart said research shows they do better academically as the oldest students in a school, as do other students in a K-6 school. He cited the K-5 Whittier School as having the best test scores in the city as evidence. All this will not be cheap. “Now comes the fun part,” Van Campen joked before discussing financing. A presentation by design consultants Abie Khatchadourian of Perkins Eastman and Leena Long of LeftField indicated the cost would be at least $280 million with the possibility of it running to $312 million. Part of the redesign will include tearing down the present Field House and other parts of a 1968 renovation to the original 1926 building because plans to subdivide that area would be more expensive, possibility driving the project to $320 through the City of Everett’s operating budgets debt exclusion or a partial debt exclusion. “We’re looking at this and the best way we can do this, but the fi rst question we have to answer is if we’re supportive of a project like this,” Van Campen said. The City is working its way through securing funding for a new High School with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), but funds from them would not be applicable to creating a new Middle School, in part because they don’t fund two projects in one community simultaneously. They covered about 26% of the cost in Wakefi eld. (When the MSBA undertakes a project involving neighborhood schools, usually just K-4 or K-5, they analyze the confi guration of a community’s entire school system at that level and may make recommendations that might include consolidation or reorganization. That’s not the case when they undertake a project for a community-wide Middle or High School.) 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