A new school for the next generation

Updated June 3.

After years of administrative meetings and an historic Island-wide vote, the long-awaited Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School building project, with an addition and renovation price tag of $333.5 million, passed in a landslide with the promise to transform the campus for future generations and address much-needed issues.

All six towns showed their overwhelming support for the project, with 3,448 people, or 84 percent, voting yes, despite qualms about the high price tag, which taxpayers across the Vineyard will be paying for over the next 30 years, and the prospect of a five-year period of construction set to begin next summer. 

School committee members, teachers, and administrators who were part of the planning process gathered at the Portuguese-American Club in Oak Bluffs on Tuesday night as the votes rolled in. Just 45 minutes after the polls closed, All-Island school committee chair Amy Houghton announced the decision was decisively in favor of the new school. 

Amid a smattering of applause, Houghton announced to the crowd, “The voter turnout was amazing. It showed that people felt that their votes really counted.”

Also in attendance was MVRHS Director of Operations Sam Hart, who spearheaded much of the planning. He told The Times that he’s proud of the community and excited for the next chapter in building a school that will serve future generations, and that will finally repair a building that has long been in decline, and created conditions that threaten the health of students and teachers alike.

Hart said to The Times, “We’re going to bring forth a modern, clean, energy-efficient, breathable space for you to be the best teachers of the world that you are.”

The high school project has been in the works for years, with repairs and needed fixes culminating in the design. In September, The Times toured the school and saw below-standard classroom sizes, mold, leaks, floods. Last week, in another walk-through, The Times interviewed teachers and students who said they were experiencing health issues from the asbestos under the floor tiles and the lack of central air. Some of those teachers were in the P.A. Club on Tuesday, celebrating with their colleagues. 

“To all the teachers and staff who work in that building: Your days of working in substandard air, substandard heat, substandard AC, substandard water, those days are numbered,” Hart said in an interview.

The air of excitement continued in the school Wednesday morning after the news that the project had passed. But there was also a sense of wariness from some students. Parts of the school will be affected more than others by construction, such as the track, which will be removed completely and rebuilt. The effort, while necessary, could impact students who place in states or nationals, or who simply enjoy the sport. 

Enzo Reis, a junior and a track and cross-country athlete, said he’s just missing the construction, but current freshman and sophomores could be affected by the removal: “[They] might not have a track for a whole entire year, if not longer, so that might really affect their performances.”

But he added that the athletes need a new one. “The track is really bad. A lot of our runners this year … have had injuries because of the track, because of how bad it is. Shin splints are a very common occurrence,” Reis told The Times. 

Students mostly expressed support for the building project on Wednesday, along with hopes for the future generations who will potentially benefit from a new space. Many of them are just missing the start of construction, or will see the first few years. None of the young Islanders enrolled in MVRHS classes will go to school on the fully finished campus. 

Thauan De Souza, a sophomore at MVRHS, went to elementary and middle school in Tisbury, and studied through the building project that happened there. “The only thing I hope is that we don’t get separated from the main building, and that we have our own space,” De Souza told The Times on Wednesday as he headed to the cafeteria. 

Some community members, however, were not in support of such an expensive undertaking. Clarence (“Trip”) Barnes helped construct the 1959 regional high school, and one of his children was in the graduating class of 1960. He was on the front lines of the original project, culling bricks with his own two hands, and has been outspoken about his views on the plan that was in front of voters. His main issue, he said, was that maintenance was not kept up with, and he isn’t confident that a new building would address that. “My children and my grandchildren went to that school,” he told The Times in an interview on Wednesday morning. “They didn’t take care of it.”

Barnes also had concerns about the high price tag, one that taxpayers are slated to pay for during the next 30 years. While school committee members say they understand concerns about the cost, they have consistently countered that a vote in favor of the project not only ensures construction can move forward but that MVRHS can also retain state reimbursement funds. The Massachusetts School Building Authority accepted MVRHS a few years ago, after seven failed applications, and has awarded the project up to $75 million. 

A no vote from the Island community would have squandered that reimbursement, but many of the repairs would still have been necessary. The cost for those upgrades, without the current design and reimbursement from the state, would have likely well-exceeded the plan on the table. 

Superintendent Richard (“Richie”) Smith, who is set to officially retire on July 1, said the culmination of the efforts of the past decade from administrators, school committees, staff, and teachers felt like a monumental achievement. 

Smith was driving to Oak Bluffs from a Chilmark Select Board meeting on Tuesday night when he called Mark Friedman, school business administrator and finance officer at MVRHS, who excitedly told him the news. “I literally teared up,” Smith said. “Happy tears,” he assured us. 

“I’m just grateful this Island always supports our schools,” Smith told the Times Tuesday night. “We are largely in the 70 percent to 80 percent yes in all of the towns. I don’t know when we’ve had that level of overwhelming types of votes here … This is the happiest I’ve been in a very long time.” 

Interim principal of the school Sean Mulvey, who has seen the peak of progress for the school building project in the year leading up to the June 2 vote, said he’s very grateful for the support: “Thank you to everybody who voted for the project, it’s going to be a great one.”

Sara Dingledy, the former principal of MVRHS who led the school through much of the project, said the new building will benefit the entire community. Dingledy is the new chair of the board for ACE MV, and pointed to the night classes and programming that happen in the high school after hours — not to mention the shows, performances, and town meetings that happen in the Performing Arts Center through the summer. “This is a huge win for the Island,” Dingledy told The Times. 

Some current teachers attended the school as students themselves, and said the plan for a new building couldn’t have come soon enough. They saw dilapidated conditions when they attended school, and now work in the same layout, but with worsened mold, flooding, and a few more wet floor signs than in years prior. 

“This is something that’s been in the works for so long … not only for the kids but the community as well. It’s going to be a community building,” Jack Pachico, an MVRHS culinary arts teacher, told The Times. “Coming from being a student and now as an employee there, it’s about time.”

Editor’s note: Updated to include interviews from students at MVRHS on Wednesday and more information about the high school building project.