Bales Elementary School

The Bales Elementary School has a long history. This is the brief summary of it as posted on the MilfordNH web site:

In 1894 the town of Milford celebrated its centennial and the new Centennial High School was opened. The cost of the whole project was $47,000 of which $10,000 was for the land. The new school contained the latest in equipment and building features. Because of its excellence, students from surrounding communities were attracted to it and the tuition was welcomed by the town. Eleven graduates were in the first graduating class in 1896 and the last class to graduate was in 1961 with eighty graduates. In 1961 high school students were housed in the new AREA high school on West Street and the old high school was given over entirely to Junior High students. The building was remodeled In 1969 and became the elementary school. It was renamed the Bales Elementary School In honor of Harold C. Bales who served as superintendent from 1919 to 1939.

The building is no longer used as an elementary school, and is instead used mainly to house the Sage School program and the Special Education staff. This is a brief summary of the Sage School, as shown on the Sage School web site:

The Milford Alternative School, known as the Sage School, provides educational and therapeutic programming for students in grades six through twelve identified as "high risk" or with a serious emotional disability.

The mission of the Milford Alternative School is to provide an alternative, safe, and supportive environment in which students can achieve their academic potential and develop the skills and competencies necessary for employment, further education, and daily life.

I'd like to rename the building, with the primary motivation to get rid of the word "Elementary" since it is no longer appropriate. I think that calling it the "Bales Building" would be fine, but other names would be OK also. There is a good chance that the building will end up being a mixed use building, with a combination of school uses and town uses. Calling it a building instead of a school matches up better for a mixed use structure.

The District will be setting up a Bales Use Study Committee this fall, with the objective being the development of long term plans for the building. Everything will be on the table for review by the committee, from selling the building (giving it away), to doing nothing, to full renovations for various uses. Contact the SAU office if you have any interest in serving on the committee.

As part of the bond that passed last year, we will be putting a new roof on the building and fixing the soffits. We will hold off on doing other major work until there is a long-term plan in place for the building that seems to make sense. The next larger bond probably won't be proposed until sometime after the existing Middle School bond expires in the 2012 time frame, so there is plenty of time to figure out what we want to do with the building.