Katy Lillian of JCJ Architecture and Haverhill School Superintendent James F. Scully during a site walk last summer. (WHAV News photograph.)
Move-in day at the new $61.5 Hunking School is Thursday, Dec. 22—a day before students break for Christmas.
“Tremendous cooperation” by the building contractor and others led to an opening date earlier than a March 1 target, said schools Superintendent James F. Scully in a letter to parents Wednesday. The weekend before the move, staff will start moving teaching materials from the old to the new building.
“On Thursday, Dec. 22, at 1 p.m., students will be led from the old Hunking to the new Hunking. On Friday morning Dec. 23, they will report to the schoolyard of the new school where they will line up at their classroom designations,” Scully said. “As you know, Friday, Dec. 23, is a half-day and your students will be dismissed at the regular half-day dismissal time.”
Teachers will prepare after classes, Monday, Dec. 19, through Wednesday, Dec. 21, for students to enter the new Hunking. WHAV reported as early as last June Scully had expected the new school to be ready for a December move. He said at the time the construction project was running several weeks ahead of schedule and under budget.
Scully also advised some construction fencing will temporarily be left in place for recently seeded and planted grounds and, until spring, bus and vehicle traffic will share the same driveway until a new bus egress is available.
Mayor James J. Fiorentini called Scully’s announcement “great news.”
“My congratulations to Superintendent Scully and his team on a job well done,” Fiorentini said.
Elementary students slated to attend the new grades K to 8, 1,000-student Hunking, including those at Greenleaf School, as WHAV earlier reported, will wait until at least next summer. “It will be 50 percent populated this January and then, June or September, be 100 percent populated with about 1,000 students,” Scully said last June.
The new Hunking construction began with site clearing and other preliminary work in April, 2015. A formal ground-breaking ceremony, attended by local and state officials, was held a month later.