MEXICO – Nearly 70 vocational students at the Region 9 School of Applied Technology will be attending classes elsewhere beginning Feb. 1.

Those in metal trades, building trades and forestry will be dispersed to alternative sites through the end of the school year to allow interior construction at the school.

Director Brenda Gammon said the nearly 20 metal trades students will set up shop at the River Valley Technology Center. She plans to meet with Rumford Town Manager Jim Doar and the town’s public works director, Andy Russell, today to discuss using two vacant bays at the Rumford town garage to house the forestry and building-trades students.

Region 9 school board Chairman Norman Clanton said the original plan for the school’s $4.9 million renovation and construction project called for more of the exterior work to be done by now, then interior work to be completed during the summer months.

The project is still on schedule, but the order of work has been changed. The entire renovation and construction project will be completed in time for the beginning of the 2008-09 school year, Clanton said. In addition to the current vocational courses, new ones in automotive technology and early childhood development also will be offered.

Gammon said students will arrive at the River Road school as they normally do each day, then be bused to their class sites.

She said finding space for building trades has been particularly difficult because of the need for a large area in which four sheds, used in the carpentry class, can fit, and a door large enough for them to be moved in and out.

The forestry program’s skidder will also be moved to an alternative site. Metal working machines will be moved to the River Valley Technology Center.

Two other programs, computer technology and certified nurses aide, will be relocated within the existing school building.

In a related matter, the Region 9 board on Wednesday approved a change-of-work order that will provide a higher quality component for the overall construction project.

Architect Jim Reuter, of the Bethel firm of Smith Reuter Lull, said the $40,000 additional cost will allow new concrete slabs and floor drains in the bay areas of the school. The modifications will level the elevation issue caused by the addition.

He said the renovation/addition bid came in under cost so will not change the original amount of money to be paid by the region’s member towns.