High Bids Halt Plans for McCann Nursing Addition By Jack Guerino, iBerkshires Staff
03:37AM / Friday, July 18, 2014 | |
 The McCann School Committee also voted to stick with MCAS testing rather than move forward with the pilot program for PARCC. |
 McCann school officials are seeking a new venue for the licensed nursing program after bids for an addition came in at more than $700,000. |
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — McCann Technical School's plans to build an addition for the licensed practical nursing program have come to a halt.
Superintendent James Brosnan told the School Committee on Thursday night that all three bidders in combination with subbidders came in well over budget.
"So three bids all in excess of $700,000," Brosnan said. "We aren't going to build the building, but we will keep the process alive and look for alternative locations."
With the closing of the North Adams Regional Hospital, the LPN program does not have a place to hold classes. It had been using some 3,000 square feet in the Doctors Building on the hospital campus.
The school was approved on Monday to construct a 2,700-square-foot addition with utilities connected to the main building. The building would house all the labs and equipment needed to run the nursing program.
Brosnan declined to comment further on the program's future, saying he will continue to look for a viable venue.
The committee also approved the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System as its standardized testing system for the upcoming school year with Brosnan's recommendation.
Brosnan said he is not comfortable enough with the piloted Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test at this point in time.
"We need to get some of the issues and questions with PARCC taken care of first before we get our students in," he said.
Brosnan said the PARCC test is safer to experiment with in a K-12 school.
"It's one thing to be rolling them through the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade and starting that process and moving them forward," he said. "There are reasons when you are a kK-12 system why you could jump in as an experimental year and see how it works, but not us as a [Grades] 9-12 school."
McCann students have experimented with the PARCC test and Brosnan said they did well, but he would rather not mix the test in now when the students are prepared for the MCAS.
"Let's remain with MCAS; it is what we know, it is what we have worked up to, and then there will be more time to get students and staff ready for the PARCC exam and how it relates to the common core," Brosnan said.
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