NASHUA, NH – After two and half years of construction, Brian S. McCarthy Middle School is completed and ready to welcome students for the first day of school on Aug. 27.
It’s a $93 million state-of-the-art school building where students will be able to thrive – but also built with a focus on safety and energy-efficiency.
“We’ve been installing security vestibules in all our schools,” said Shawn Smith, Nashua School District’s plant operations director. “Typically you come in the main door, you sign in with security [whose] behind bullet resistant glass. … Once you buzz in with the secretary then she can let you into the school.”
Bullet resistant windows are also installed throughout the lower levels of the building. Cameras are positioned all around the interior and exterior of the school, and a shooter detection system will be installed that will monitored at the school and police department that will be able to detect where a weapon is located in the school and caliber of the weapon, if a shooter were to enter.
Once through the security vestibule, you enter the cafeteria which includes a stage for the space to also be able to function as an auditorium.
“[Elm Street] had the Keefe Auditorium, so there was an interest in having a stage here as well,” Smith said.
The building also features rubberized tile floors and insulated padded walls and an outdoor special education playground. All lights are LED, and each classroom has motion detection lights that will dim and adjust depending on how much natural light is in the room.
The school received support from NHSaves, a collaboration between electric and natural gas utility partners that work together to “provide customers with information, incentives, and support designed to save energy, reduce costs and protect our environment statewide,” according to Mike Loughlin, Senior Energy Efficiency Consultant at Eversource.
“The Nashua Middle School benefited from [more than] $130,000 in incentives from Eversource and Liberty for energy-saving improvements including kitchen equipment, insulation, energy recovery ventilators, and high-efficiency condensing boilers,” he said. “These upgrades are expected to yield lifetime savings of 43,900 MMBtu, which is equivalent to removing 55 gas-powered vehicles from the roads for an entire year.”
With these upgrades, NHSaves estimates a savings of $50,000 on annual operation costs.
According to Smith, the installation of solar panels on the roof – the process for which will begin in September – is expected to bring the school even more savings, based on the data from the current solar installations at Fairgrounds Middle School, Pennichuck Middle School, and Dr. Crisp Elementary where costs have gone down 40 percent.