How are Cape Elizabeth schools falling short?
Unfortunately, they are easy to find, per our architects: Barriers to Education in Our Existing Schools.
Our oldest schools lack modern security measures and have inadequate entrances, making it challenging to monitor who enters and exits the buildings. The "middle ground" project solves this challenge for CEMS, creating distinctions between public spaces (ex. gymnasium) and student spaces (classrooms). The project also greatly enhances security at Pond Cove with a new entrance and administrative offices.
The administrative addition to Pond Cove will solve challenges with the Nurse's Office, like how students are waiting to be treated in the main lobby due to a lack of triage and waiting space. The "middle ground" project will also address the needs for more specialized learning spaces such as Special Education, speech and occupational therapy, mathematics and reading intervention, and more.
On the academic side, our small, outdated classrooms and technology infrastructure is inadequate and falls short of supporting the demands of modern-day teaching methods. This results in limitations on providing learning experiences that reflect today's workforce, such as spaces that support hands-on, group projects and technological creativity and communication. The elementary school STEM lab is housed in a hallway, along an ADA ramp — the "middle ground" proposal will add a STEM space to the library.
One of the largest challenges educationally, is the cafetorium which controls the schedule for both Pond Cove and CEMS, restricting academic scheduling for over 1,000 students. The "middle ground" project addresses this with the separation of CEMS and Pond Cove as two distinct schools.
Lastly, our current facilities' maintenance costs are increasing yearly due to their age and design. Our mechanical systems are outdated, past their useful life, excessively loud, and inefficient. Finding replacement parts is a challenge for our school budget. There are over two dozen roofs at the current CEMS/PC building. In some areas, when it rains, it drips into the classrooms and hallways, with swim tiles used to absorb the moisture above the ceiling tiles.
The "middle ground" project not only resets the clock on CEMS, but it also includes significant maintenance upgrades at Pond Cove (including mechanical, new flooring, new ceilings, and paint) that will help reduce these rising expenses in the long run, benefiting both taxpayers and students alike.
This is just a short list of some of the day-to-day challenges in our buildings. For the full 900-page Facility Needs Assessment Report, click here to download.
