Frequently Asked Questions

Monomoy Regional School District is embarking on a much-needed restoration project at Monomoy Middle School, to be done in two phases that, together, will fully protect the entire building envelope for years to come. Failure to secure the building envelope will lead to more expensive water damage to the building’s interior, lead to mold growth, and compromise the indoor air quality for our children and staff. 

Phase 1 of the project will address the increasingly urgent need to prevent further water infiltration along the windows of the building and to replace the current siding, sheathing, and trim which was installed nearly 30 years ago. The white cedar shingles on the middle school have exceeded their lifespan, which according to experts is typically 25 years, and may be less in harsh coastal environments exposed to more frequent wind and moisture. In order to secure the sides of the building from water infiltration, the project needs to include the removal of windows and properly flashing each opening before the new sheathing and siding are applied.

Phase 2 of the project involves the replacement of the building’s roof, which in some places is over 34 years old. The school district does work with a contractor to patch leaks as they arise, but storms with heavy wind and rain consistently find some water leaking into the building, including the gymnasium during a recent Chatham Town Meeting.

Combined, both project phases will preserve the Monomoy Regional Middle School facility as a great asset to our two towns and our children for decades to come. The Monomoy Middle School building provides an excellent educational home for our students from Chatham, Harwich, and beyond, in addition to housing the district’s Central Office team – from payroll to HR to the Superintendent. The building was originally home to the Chatham Middle/High School, and as such, provides our students with a wealth of learning spaces, including a second gym for before-school, after-school, and additional activities. The building also houses a full auditorium and performance space, as well as room for both band and music classes. Monomoy Middle School is also home to a wide range of community activities, from youth sports to Chatham Town Meeting to a number of First Night activities on New Year’s Eve. The building has served the community very well for many years, and with a bit of work, is poised to continue to be a tremendous asset for years to come. 
 

As our middle school building’s siding and roof are increasingly challenged with water intrusion from aging natural wood materials exposed to coastal storms, this has heightened concerns about indoor air quality from staff and parents of children attending the school. Monomoy Regional School District has been conducting regular air quality testing of our middle school over the past year. To date, there is no evidence that water intrusion is causing mold growth inside of the building and walls to a level that has compromised the indoor air quality – the air breathed in by children and teachers. To ensure that the conditions inside the building’s wall cavities are not compromised by mold growth, engineers working with RDA architects have used infrared imaging to identify potential damp areas within the walls, bored through the interior drywall in over 40 locations throughout the building, and inspected the sheathing beneath the cedar shingles about every 20 feet around the building’s perimeter. None of the indoor wall samples showed signs of mold growth; however, inspections of the sheathing material beneath the exterior cedar shingles show evidence that water is soaking into the plywood sheathing, emphasizing the need to secure the building’s envelope before the moisture reaches the drywall and becomes much more expensive to mitigate. Find more information on indoor air quality here. 

The Environmental Protection Agency clearly states that “the best way to control mold growth is to control moisture.” While testing to date indicates that the level of mold spores inside middle school classrooms is comparable to levels found in the air outside of the school building, it would be a mistake to believe that the stormwater seeping in through the siding or roof will not result in mold growth and have a negative impact on indoor air quality. Combined, the siding and windows project and the following roof project will secure the middle school building envelope from the elements, keeping rainwater from leaking into the building, which could potentially lead to mold growth and compromise indoor air quality for our students and teachers. These regular indoor air quality tests at our middle school have occasionally come back with elevated test results for mold (such as closed-off locker rooms or a stack of books that had gotten wet in the library) and were easily remedied. The school district has also conducted concurrent indoor air quality tests in our other school buildings – these too have come back in the normal range and are no different from levels of mold found within the middle school. For safety reasons, the MRSD will continue to monitor indoor air quality at the middle school until the exterior envelope projects have been completed; thereby preventing water from seeping into the school building.
 

The first official step in Phase 1 of the middle school restoration project is to have voters at the annual Town Meetings in both towns approve the borrowing for the siding and window project. Voters will be able to express their wishes at the annual Town Meeting in Harwich on May 5 and in Chatham on May 10. The voters in Harwich will also be asked to approve the project at the town elections on May 20. Pending support for this project by the voters, a Request For Proposals (RFP) will be sent out in July, inviting contractors to bid on the project. A contract would be awarded this summer to the “lowest responsible and eligible” bidder and the windows and siding would be ordered, with phased construction beginning before the start of the 2026 calendar year. The windows and siding project should be completed by the summer of 2026.

A similar process would be followed for Phase 2 of the project, with a warrant article for the roof replacement project brought to the voters at the annual Town Meeting 2026 and at the polls in May 2026. The roof replacement would begin immediately following the completion of the siding and windows project, and it would ideally be finished in the summer or early fall of 2027.
 

State law requires that school construction projects estimated at $1.5 million or greater must hire a certified Owner’s Project Manager (OPM). The OPM acts as the school district’s representative, overseeing the entire project from planning through completion, ensuring the district’s and taxpayer’s interests are protected, and ensuring that the project meets all Massachusetts Public Procurement regulations. The Monomoy Regional Middle School Building Committee interviewed prospective OPMs and hired ECC Corporation to handle the management of this project. The certified OPM from ECC who will be the point person for our project is David Choi, Architect - AIA, MCPPO - OPM. The OPM will also ensure that the project meets all Massachusetts Public Procurement regulations. The OPM is working closely with the Monomoy Regional Middle School Building Committee on planning and decision-making. There will also be a Clerk of the Works from ECC Corporation on-site full-time throughout the construction process. The Clerk of the Works will ensure that the contractors installing the new siding and windows adhere to the specifications and plans provided by the architects – they will monitor quality, safety, and progress until the project is completed.
 

Yes, the timeline of this project specifically takes into account minimizing the disruption to students and staff. As much work as possible will be done over the summer, but inevitably work will need to be done while students are in the building. To accomplish this without disturbing learning, the project will be done in phases with roughly six classrooms taken offline at a time and moved elsewhere within the school. When the walls and windows of those six classrooms are done, the indoor air and physical spaces will be checked for safety, classes returned to the spaces, and the next six-classroom section of the building turned over to the contractors.

The spaces under construction will be sealed off from the rest of the interior spaces by plastic sheeting to prevent construction dust from spreading. Safety fencing will be erected in the areas of active construction to keep students out of the construction zone. Lastly, all contractors will be CORI checked.
 

Yes. The primary structure and footprint of the building will remain as it is. The siding and trim choices will keep the same coastal New England aesthetic, but instead of white cedar shingles and white painted pine trim, the project will capture this aesthetic using modern engineered materials that are made to last longer and hold up better in a coastal climate. The Monomoy Middle School Building Committee determined the color and material used using the community’s feedback on colors and materials as part of their decision-making, along with cost and durability. Panels displaying siding materials and colors were on display both in Chatham and Harwich last year in order to get the community’s input. In the end, our goal is to restore the building in a manner that will meet the needs of our schools and our community for years to come, using long-lasting materials that provide good long-term value to the taxpayers, and be aesthetically appealing.
 

While $11.5 million for new siding and windows plus approximately $8.5 million for a new roof may seem like a lot, this is a fraction of the cost of building a new middle school. The cost of building a new middle school would likely exceed $100 million if done today. In the past decade, construction prices have nearly doubled. For example, construction began on Monomoy Regional High School in 2013 – the building is 168,000 square feet with a project budget of $59,451,080. A decade later, Dennis-Yarmouth began construction on their new middle school in 2022, which is fairly similar in size to Monomoy’s high school but with a much higher cost – it is 186,500 square feet building that had a project budget of $111,268,020. Monomoy Regional Middle School is a 120,000-square-foot building, providing ample space for the academic program and the luxury of a second gymnasium and an auditorium. Monomoy Middle School Building Committee weighed the costs of new construction building versus renovation. Given the sound condition of the middle school, the Building Committee unanimously supported the less expensive renovation approach rather than new construction, which could be 3 or more times more costly to the towns and taxpayers. 
 

The Phase 1 siding and windows project is largely an exterior project. The minor exceptions would be the replacement of interior window sills, repair of any drywall and finishes impacted by the window replacement process, and installation of new window shades.
 

If the district does not receive approval from both towns to incur the additional debt, the planned project will not go ahead and the district will not be able to replace the siding and windows at this time. Nevertheless, it will still be necessary for the district to continue to try to keep water out of the wall cavity but try to patch leaks around the window trim. Inevitably, patching alone will not be sufficient to stop water from getting into the building, and where there is moisture, there is the potential for mold growth. Until the new siding, windows, and roof are installed, the district will continue to monitor indoor air quality to ensure students and staff are safe. If the towns don’t support the middle school restoration project, the district will likely expend around $300,000 a year between the continued middle school exterior maintenance and indoor air quality monitoring – these are funds that could otherwise be used to pay down the debt on a funded middle school restoration project.
 

Capital projects at the middle school and high school levels are paid for by the taxpayers in our towns as outlined in the Monomoy Regional Agreement. The Regional Agreement specifies that capital projects at our middle school and high school are split proportionally based on the enrollment ratio of students living in Harwich and Chatham in Grades 5 through Grade 12. Currently, the Grade 5 through Grade 12 enrollment finds 25% of our resident students living in Chatham and 75% living in Harwich. A similar proportional split in school costs is seen at Cape Tech, where the towns are assessed a percentage of Tech’s budget based on the percentage of students at Cape Tech who reside in each member town. Per Monomoy’s Regional Agreement, the towns fully fund all costs associated with the elementary school operating in the town. Note: The Regional Agreement and funding split between the towns is subject to review and amendment. 
 

While $11.5 million for new siding and windows plus approximately $8.5 million for a new roof may seem like a lot, this is a fraction of the cost of building a new middle school. The cost of building a new middle school would likely exceed $100 million if done today. In the past decade, construction prices have nearly doubled. For example, construction began on Monomoy Regional High School in 2013 – the building is 168,000 square feet with a project budget of $59,451,080. A decade later, Dennis-Yarmouth began construction on their new middle school in 2022, which is fairly similar in size to Monomoy’s high school but with a much higher cost – it is 186,500 square feet building that had a project budget of $111,268,020. Monomoy Regional Middle School is a 120,000-square-foot building, providing ample space for the academic program and the luxury of a second gymnasium and an auditorium. Monomoy Middle School Building Committee weighed the costs of new construction building versus renovation. Given the sound condition of the middle school, the Building Committee unanimously supported the less expensive renovation approach rather than new construction, which could be 3 or more times more costly to the towns and taxpayers. 
 

Chatham has a lower tax rate and fewer students attending Monomoy’s schools, so the impact for an average household would be less than in Harwich. Preliminary estimates (note: we are awaiting confirmation from the towns) indicate that if the borrowing for the middle school siding and windows were spread over 25 years, the average impact on a home in Harwich would be approximately $58 per year and the impact on the average home in Chatham would be approximately $16 per year. Borrowing for the subsequent middle school roofing project would add approximately $40 per year to a Harwich tax bill and about $17 to a Chatham tax bill.

No, the district will borrow the funds in phases, in line with the construction schedule to ensure that the district doesn’t borrow more than is required. 
 

The district was previously approved by both towns to borrow $2.5M toward the Middle School project. The total project budget is now $11,507,030, therefore the district needs approval to borrow the additional $9,007,030.
 

Since that approval, the district has engaged an architect and a project manager.  The architect has conducted a feasibility study, in which they reviewed the conditions of the building, the potential scope of the project and the likely cost of the construction. The district has also set up a Middle School Building Committee to oversee the project. 

During the feasibility study and since then, extensive testing of the building has been carried out. This has included invasive moisture testing of the outside envelope of the building, thermal imaging of the walls (to detect dampness), and core samples of drywall. This testing has helped inform the scope of the project. 

Based on the findings of the architect, the scope of the project has been expanded to include replacing the windows. The budget has also been increased to include a significant contingency budget in light of the uncertainty both in construction in general and in this project specifically. 

Postponing this project will only do two things. First, the total cost of the project will increase (in Massachusetts, construction project costs have increased 5% to 7% in just the past year). Second, and perhaps most importantly, any delay in this project has the potential to negatively impact indoor air quality at the middle school, as the water infiltration could lead to mold issues, additional concerns, and further remediation costs, leading to even higher total project costs.

The towns of Chatham and Harwich can engage in discussions about the Regional Agreement at any time. The Regional Agreement specifies that it should be reviewed by the School Committee at least every five years. Changes to the Regional Agreement were brought to Town Meetings in May 2022 – these changes shifted the funding for all costs at the elementary school to the town in which the elementary school is located. As it is more expensive to run a smaller elementary school (like Chatham Elementary) compared to a larger elementary school (like Harwich Elementary), the 2022 change to the Regional Agreement shifted more than $1 million in costs from the Harwich taxpayers to the Chatham taxpayers. Similar to MRSD, the Nauset Regional School District, has the towns of Brewster, Orleans, Eastham, and Wellfleet each pay for their own elementary schools, but share regional costs for students in Grades 6 through Grade 12 based on the proportion of students attending school from each of the feeder towns.