SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – City officials joined Springfield Public Schools staff to unveil the wide array of ESSR-funded projects and other additional improvements taking place within the school district.
Summer school in Springfield closing early due to heat These enhancements are happening in and outside of the classroom from ESSR funds which are the last of those emergency relief funds received from the pandemic. The funding was provided for school districts to support the safe reopening of schools while sustaining safe operations to meet students’ academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs.
22News spoke to Facilities Director Jon Carignan and he says the district chose to allocate those funds directly to those individual schools for principals and key stakeholders to determine what their priorities were.
This three-year project is finally in its final stages and the enhancements include new HVAC systems in nine schools and new playgrounds.
“We’re looking at 24 playgrounds, just about every neighborhood is receiving one form of another of a playground. We’re already starting to see the benefits in the community, three of them fully complete. These are state-of-the-art playgrounds in place, we replaced surfacing, and they look like 1 million bucks. You have a pretty hefty price tag but we were happy to see the funds. They really benefit the community, the students, the staff, and the families,” said Facilities Director Jon Carignan.
In addition, they re-purposed a lot of existing spaces that were underutilized and transformed them into brand-new operational spaces. Students at Sci-Tech will now have a band shell for their award-winning band students and students at Putnam will have a new turf field.
They hope that they can wrap up a lot of these projects by next summer.
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