ALL CLEAR! 2 school bldgs. ready for other uses

October 20, 2012

Henry Trudeau, custodial night supervisor for the Woonsocket School Department, tours Room 3 on Friday at Second Avenue School, which has been totally vacated. Photo/Ernest A. Brown

WOONSOCKET – The school department’s efforts to prepare two of its school buildings for return to the city for possible conversion to new uses appear to be moving forward.
School Department Facilities Director Peter Fontaine said Friday that the Second Avenue Elementary School has been emptied of all of its contents and is awaiting a final vote by the School Committee to turn the building back to city control.
The Fifth Avenue Elementary School, closed just before the start of the current school year, is in the process of being cleared and could be ready for turnover after the school department conducts a tentatively scheduled Nov. 8 in-house auction of any items left after local teachers and principals finish transferring Fifth Avenue furnishings to other city schools.
“We will still need to organize all the things that are left in that building before we can have the auction,” Fontaine said.
The school department planned an auction for unused desks and classroom furnishings to avoid the criticism raised when the city took over the massive middle school building at Park Place upon completion of the new middle school buildings at Hamlet Avenue and Villa Nova Street.

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