Repairs Begin at Concord’s McAuliffe Elementary School

In a July 31, memo, McAuliffe Principal Kris Gallo informed parents that the playground area of the school would be closed for a few weeks starting Aug. 1, to make repairs around the amphitheater and swing set areas of the playgrounds, to fix the muddy conditions and level the field. She apologized for the inconvenience but said she was excited about the improvements.

Drainage problems are mainly due to a 16-foot grade of the slope from Rumford Street down to the main entrance of the school and the fact that the school is built over an underground aquifer.

Details about the costs and scope of the repairs, and information about the problems were not mentioned in any recent school board meeting minutes available online.

However, on June 3, board members were told that the district was unable to close on all financial aspects of the $91 million elementary consolidation project with the New Hampshire Department of Education due to outstanding issues at the McAuliffe, according to the Concord TV rebroadcast of the meeting.

Matt Cashman, the director of facilities and planning for the district, said in recent months, he had been meeting with engineers, the architects, and the construction contractor to look at the problems on the site with water.

“There are some additional drainage (problems) and different fixes we want to do on the outside play site before we close that,” he said.

Superintendent Chris Rath stated that officials “weren’t happy this winter” with all the problems including water damage, problems with the sidewalks buckling, and other issues.

“It’s a tough site, because it’s a small site, and the drainage presented itself, it found its own natural path and didn’t follow what was built in,” Cashman said. “We’re assessing that (and) we are now taking another look at what can be added or changed to redirect the water flow, so that water that will always show up there, goes to where it needs to go.”

Kass Ardinger, president of the school board, asked why the budget couldn’t be closed even if there were problems and Rath said, “Because we still might need to use money from the bond.”

Cashman said Nobis Engineering “really scoured over what happened on the site and there might need to be additional drainage structures that might need to be put in.”

Clint Cogswell, the chairman of the finance committee, asked if it was architectural problem that insurance would cover or something else.

Cashman said the entire site had been evaluated and some elevations on the site “don’t exactly match what is on there.” He called the amounts “little” but enough to cause a changes.

“If it’s not per plan, then the contractor owns that,” he said. “If it is per plan but not working properly, then those are some things we’ll have to look at. It’s very detailed and complicated but we’re getting to a point where we know … we’re going to have a good plan on how to fix this.”

Cashman said establishment of grass would help but that might require sections of the playground to not be used for at least a year, so the seeds can take.

At the July 1, regular board meeting, during another discussion about the new school building finances, Cashman said there were unresolved issues at the McAuliffe contractors and subcontractors, so the district was unable to close the books on the building.

Cashman was on vacation and not available for comment about the problem.