LOWELL — Superintendent Liam Skinner told the School Committee last Wednesday that Lowell Public Schools is in discussions with the Archdiocese of Boston to purchase Ste Jeanne d’Arc School for approximately $2.4 million.
Assistant Superintendent of Finance/Chief Financial Officer Billie Jo Turner included the current year budget documents on the agenda that included the line item for the purchase.
“The money is … a placeholder of sorts, it’s not indicating the price of the property,” Skinner said. “I think it’s a reasonable estimate. We need to account for the funds in our budget if we’re going to be able to purchase that property.”
The money will come out of the School Department’s $10 million Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, commonly known as ESSER. Besides the potential school purchase, ESSER funding is earmarked for STEM Academy modular classrooms, boiler systems, steam plants, air units, water station installation and space solution investments.
Located in Lowell’s Pawtucketville neighborhood, Ste Jeanne d’Arc has been vacant since it closed its doors at the end of the 2023 school year.
According to previous reporting, the school graduated more than 4,700 alumni from its kindergarten through eighth grade program and served students from across Middlesex County, from Chelmsford to Dunstable to North Andover, and even taught those from as far as Nashua and Windham, N.H. The school was founded by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
Although the school itself dates back to 1910, the building at 68 Dracut St. was constructed in the 1950s. Should the deal go through, Skinner told the committee that there is “a considerable amount of work needed on the building to have to be ready to be a public school.”
He anticipated the building would be ready for students in the 2025-2026 school year.
“If it were to work out, we’d be very grateful for that,” he said. “We certainly need the space.”
Currently, the district has 15,000 students spread across 28 schools.
Adding Ste Jeanne d’Arc to the district’s portfolio has long been on committee member Dominik Lay’s radar. His February 2023 motion requested then-Superintendent Joel Boyd discuss with City Manager Tom Golden the possibility of acquiring the property. His motion was unanimously approved.
“I’m excited to see that budget because that was one of the buildings that I proposed to consider buying,” Lay said during the budget discussion
The City Council adjourned after its regular session last Tuesday to go into executive session to consider and discuss the possible acquisition of the former SJA property.
Both the School Committee and the City Council are responsible for school buildings. The school district uses the buildings, but almost all are owned by the city. The district is responsible for custodial services, like cleaning, while the city is responsible for repairs.
Any purchase of the property would require City Council approval.
In an earlier story on the school’s closing, state Rep. Rodney Elliott, D-Lowell, said he attended SJA through seventh grade and sent both of his daughters there because of its “excellent reputation of preparing children educationally.” From serving as an altar boy, to participating in the choir and CYO basketball, Elliot said he has “fond memories” of his time as a student.
By phone on Monday, Elliott said he was pleased that SJA would be repurposed to expand educational opportunities in the city. When he served as mayor during the 2014-2016 council term, he said he submitted many motions to develop a special education facility in Lowell.
“My hope is that this will be developed as a special education school,” he said. “We spend millions sending students out-of-district to get a special education. Now, we can be the host and we can invite other communities in and derive the revenue source.”
He praised both Skinner and the City Council for identifying SJA as a promising addition to the district’s educational programming.
Like many districts, Lowell currently doesn’t have the space and staff to accommodate all of its special-needs students, so it is required to pay for those students to attend specialized and often expensive schools. The district budgeted more than $7 million for out-of-district special-education tuition and an additional $7 million for transportation to those schools in fiscal 2024. Bringing those services in-house could offset recurring and growing expenses related to addressing that student population.
Jennifer Myers, a spokesperson for the district, wouldn’t speculate on the proposed use of the proposed purchase of the SJA, calling it “premature.”
“The district does have a variety of space needs, but it is too premature to speculate as to how any additional buildings would be utilized,” she said.
Mayor Daniel Rourke cautioned members of the committee about continued discussion on the possible purchase of the school because “it’s an executive session matter.”
In closing, Skinner said he hoped the purchase would be completed between now and summertime.
“I have great support from the city administration,” he said. “And it is progressing as quickly as possible.”