DERRY, N.H. – Students in the Derry Cooperative School District (SAU 10) returned to a vastly improved school environment this year, thanks to extensive renovations over the summer, funded by a $24.6 million capital improvement bond for critical repairs passed by voters in 2025.
Maintenance, construction crews, custodial staff, and even faculty worked together to meet a tight eight-to-nine-week deadline for exterior work at South Range Elementary School; interior work at Gilbert H. Hood Middle School; and flooring replacements throughout the district.
The facilities maintenance team has a three-year cycle to complete the repairs due to the capital bond’s requirements. Renovations began in the summer of 2025, as the district replaced Gilbert H. Hood Middle School and Grinnell Elementary School’s roofs and chimneys, and West Running Brook’s banding and drains.
South Range Elementary School’s exterior repairs began this year. The project was so extensive the team split it into two phases. The first phase included half the roof, the facade, windows and doors.
“We were able to get the school back together, which nobody thought was possible, by the beginning of school,” says, Director of Facility Maintenance Jeremy Lamothe.
“As the students left on the last day of school, contractors pulled in within minutes. At the end of the summer, as the contractors were leaving, the teachers came in to start school again.”
Coordinating these efforts required communication among the contractors, the faculty, the facilities maintenance, and the custodial team. “Everybody worked well as a team throughout. It was a long, rough summer, but we’re super proud of it,” says Lamothe.
South Range Elementary School Principal Michelle Cremone echoed these remarks, saying Barka School Elementary staff helped South Range teachers set up their rooms before the students arrived. “Everyone in our school community pulled together, and we were ready to open our doors at nine o’clock on Monday morning,” she said.
Gilbert H. Hood Middle School also had detailed summer renovations. Early this year, a heating pipe burst, causing a flood that damaged the school’s walls and flooring. The school kept issues to a minimum during the rest of the school year, but walls, ceilings, and flooring had to be replaced. Working under the same timeframe as South Range Elementary, the project was completed before the start of the school year.
Derry Cooperative School District also installed flooring at other schools over the summer. Though the district cleans the carpets twice a year, Lamothe explains that after 20 to 30 years they needed to be updated.
These flooring replacements included East Derry Memorial Elementary School’s 8,700-square-feet of carpeting, Grinnell’s 7,500-square-feet of flooring, and West Running Brook Intermediate School’s 17,000-square-feet of hallways and classrooms. West Running Brook also had its gymnasium floor refinished, requiring extensive sanding, restriping, and recoating.
“The schools are cleaner, and we’ve been able to keep up with painting. It’s a morale booster for everyone,” says Lamothe
The school district’s current capital improvement plan (CIP) has been designed to avoid future extensive projects of such wide scope in the same year. A future-facing preventative maintenance plan details when school repairs must be made, allowing better communication to Derry voters.
“We can continue doing projects and keeping things moving rather than waiting until everything’s failed,” says LaMothe.
South Range’s second phase of structural and roofing improvements is planned for 2027, and a folding wall and guard rail at West Running Brook will be completed throughout this school year.
Derry residents had to actively mobilize and protest multiple times over several years to ultimately save South Range from being shut down.
While the town’s school district underwent a major restructuring that ultimately resulted in the closure of Derry Village Elementary School, South Range managed to stay open.
At the end of the 2023–2024 school year, the School Board officially spared South Range Elementary, choosing to keep it open while slating it for extensive physical repairs.
Gina Hutchinson, director/owner at Red Star Productions Dance & Twirl studio in Derry, summed up the community sentiment on the South Range improvements in a Sept. 6 Facebook post.
“It is a sensational school for every child who walks through those doors!” she wrote. “This is one beloved school and, with the renovations, the entire community has seen how saving South Range was a perfect result!”