The Jaffrey-Rindge Cooperative School District is looking at a possible 20,000-square-foot addition to Conant Middle High School, targeted to house career and technical education courses in public safety, culinary arts and construction.

The district is putting together a proposal in hopes of securing upcoming legislative funding earmarked provided for construction or renovation of CTE facilities. Jaffrey-Rindge, along with multiple other schools in the area, including Milford, Mascenic and ConVal, are all expected to put together plans to submit requesting funding, which could cover up to 75% of the cost.

School Board Chair Chris Ratcliffe called the potential funding a “once and forever opportunity” for the district.

The proposed addition at Conant was initially estimated to cost $27 million to build, but has since been scaled down by eliminating facilities and courses that would provide cosmology courses. Superintendent Reuben Duncan said new estimates for the reduced plan have not been assessed yet, but that the goalpost was now somewhere between $18 million and $22 million.

The Legislature is scheduled to discuss the CTE building and renovation funding by the end of this year, likely December, said Duncan. If Conant’s CTE addition is approved, the district expects to put forth a warrant article to accept state funds and raise the remaining 25% of the funds. Ratcliffe said while the district will seek additional funding sources, it does anticipate having to request funds to be raised by taxation in March.

When asked about ongoing costs, or the number of teachers this would add to the district, Duncan said the district does not have hard numbers on what the addition would add to the budget. He said some courses could be taught by existing staff, and that the construction trades course is already happening within Conant. The school also has partnerships with ConVal and Mascenic that allow students to attend their CTE programs, such as manufacturing in ConVal, or automotive repair in Mascenic.

Duncan said culinary arts and public safety, which includes law, law enforcement, forensics and emergency medical technician training, are growing areas of student and parent interest, with increased need in the workforce. Construction trades, for which the school already has a program, have remained steadily popular with lots of local jobs.

A presentation on Monday by Ashley McGraw Architects presented a potential schematic for the edition, with floor plans outlining the space usage. While the new addition itself would be about 20,000 square feet, with planned outdoor spaces and a usable roof space, learning space would increase to about 33,000 square feet in total.

The proposal is to build an angular L-shaped addition next to the far parking lot at Conant, near the current main offices. The addition would leave a gap in the center, which would become an interior courtyard.

The area for construction trades would include a 3,030-square-foot lab space, a classroom, a storage area and a covered outdoor yard.

The culinary arts section includes a kitchen with multiple student stations, a demonstration kitchen that includes student seating, an incubator space for small groups and a dining/classroom space. The area is set up so that the dining and incubation area can be connected to or completely closed off from the student learning areas, so that the dining space could be used for after-school activities.

The public safety area includes a laboratory preparation room, a lab and two classroom spaces which can each fit about 45 students and a demonstration area.

Residents who attended the meeting asked questions about potential alternatives to building an addition. Rindge Selectman Bob Hamilton, who attended the meeting remotely, asked about using existing apprenticeships or partnering with businesses in the area to get students work experience.

Duncan said that while that might work on an individual basis for students, collectively, logistics such as transportation would make it unrealistic to work for the entirety of the school.

Rindge Selectman Karl Pruter asked about the possibility of renovation, rather than a new build, or using existing buildings and whether that had been looked into. Senior architect Jennifer LaBerge with Ashley McGraw said that renovation was considered, but was ultimately determined to be too expensive and would disrupt the school operations for several years.

If the funding is approved by the Legislature, and voters in the district, the work on the addition could begin as soon as next summer, with the earliest possible completion date by the start of the 2026-2027 school year.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleyS aariMLT.