By Lisa Williams Ackley

Staff Writer

FRYEBURG — The C.A. Snow School construction project is unfolding, with a Phase I architect being sought and a site analysis performed at the Molly Ockett Middle School property off Route 302.

The Snow School project is one of only six schools in the state that the Maine Department of Education has approved for construction with state funds, since 2005. The MDOE found the current Snow School on Pine Street to be a school "in critical need of renovation or replacement."

The firm of DeLuca-Hoffman Associates Inc., a Portland-based civil and environmental engineering firm, is working with School Administrative District 72 officials, Superintendent of Schools Gary MacDonald said, when he updated the Pequawket Valley School District's Board of Directors at their meeting June 20.

"DeLuca-Hoffman has been giving us weekly reports," stated Supt. MacDonald, last week. "Thursday (June 21) they start the test pits."

MacDonald said the school board's Ad Hoc committee that is working on the Snow School project would travel to Augusta June 26 to meet with Scott Brown of the Maine Department of Education.

MacDonald said the ads for a Phase I architectural firm will begin being run on July 3, with the Ad Hoc Committee "interviewing them and coming to the board in August to recommend" one of them be hired.

"Part of the discussion in Augusta (at the MDOE) has been the process criteria and the selection process for the architect," the superintendent said. "This is taking the first step, and Scott Brown and the Department of Education strongly recommend we move in this direction and we're going to follow their path. They have been very helpful."