DRACUT — Dracut has started the process for a new elementary school in East Dracut. Campbell Elementary was picked by the Massachusetts Building Authority as a school project. What the new Campbell will be is still to be determined. Will it be a renovation to the existing building with an addition for increases in enrollment or new building altogether? The process has just started and I am proud to be a part of it as a member of the Dracut School Committee.
But let’s look back on another school building project in Dracut that happened 30 years ago –– the junior high school (today the middle school).
Back in 1994, talk about a new school building in Dracut was exciting everyone. The town had not had a school building project since 1974. But by 1994, a new building was needed to help with class sizes. Of course, the first step was a feasibility study. The study was completed, and in 1996, Town Meeting voted in favor of the new school. The town voted in favor of building a new junior high school to house grades 7 and 8. The new school building cost $19 million.
When the project began, Christos Daoulas was superintendent. Daoulas retired and the project was completed under his successor, Elaine Espindle. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on Monday, April 10, 2000. There were about 45 people in attendance.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, state Sen. Sue Tucker said, “Dracut cares about its kids and junior high kids are a unique and challenging bunch.” (I taught eighth grade for 12 years in Dracut — she’s right!)
With the groundbreaking, the anticipated opening for the school was September 2001. In the meantime, the new building needed a name. Naming a school building falls to the School Committee and in January 2001, School Committee member May Paquette submitted a motion to name the new school after former Superintendent Christos Daoulas. The other proposed names suggested were Tercentennial Junior High School (since the building was opening in the town’s tercentennial celebration year), Veterans Memorial Junior High School, Lakeview Avenue Junior High School, and simply Lakeview Junior High School. In the end, the School Committee voted to name the school Lakeview Junior High School.
In 2014, the district underwent a reorganization. The reorganization meant the junior high school would now hold grades 6-8. So, the School Committee held a vote to rename the school Lakeview Middle School.
When I saw this on the agenda, I reached out to then-School Committee Chair Mike McNamara. I suggested the school be renamed after Justus C. Richardson. Richardson had donated the land for Dracut High School many years prior. The School Committee voted in 2014 to rename the school the Justus C. Richardson Middle School.
After the vote, I asked a Dracut High graduate, and Mass. College of Art student, Tyler Bettencourt, to paint a portrait of Richardson. He based the portrait on a 1966 photo of Richardson in one of his greenhouses. Behind Richardson, is his magnificent Beaver Brook Farm. I gifted the portrait to the school. It hangs in the school lobby.
