For Penacook resident David Armstrong’s son, the reintroduction to the Merrimack Valley School District’s main campus progressed gradually.
After starting at the Merrimack Valley Learning Center in fifth grade, the first step involved traveling one mile to the district’s middle school for gym class. An academic class followed, and by high school, he joined the soccer and freshman basketball teams. By his senior year, Armstrong’s son had returned to the main high school full-time.
The step-by-step process, Armstrong said, was “a huge success story,” and one that could not have played out at most other high schools in the state.
The Learning Center is a bit of a unicorn in New Hampshire education circles – an in-district program for students with special education and other needs that is physically separate from any other school building.
The unique role it plays for students and the money it saves are major reasons why the district’s facilities committee voted this week to recommend renovating the building that houses it, rather than selling it. A full school board vote will follow next month.
“I’m relieved to be bringing this in a direction for our district to finally answer a question that folks have been asking us for a very long time,” said Jessica Wheeler Russell, a school board member who serves as the chair of its facilities committee.
The fate of the former Washington Street and Penacook High School building has been a topic of discussion on and off in the district for more than two decades, at least since students relocated to Penacook Elementary School in 2002.
Operations and Maintenance Director Fred Reagan walks up to the front entrance of the Washington Street School building.
Situated on Penacook’s Washington Street, the three-story building, constructed in the 1930s, requires significant repairs. A pair of reports commissioned by the district earlier this year examined both the cost of renovating and the potential value of selling.
While the building could sell for an estimated $1 million to $1.3 million, board members said they saw significant long-term savings in maintaining an in-district program for students who might otherwise be sent outside the district, a far costlier option. The district also makes money when students from other school districts enroll at the Learning Center.
Armstrong said the program served as a valuable middle ground between the main school and an out-of-district placement for his son, and ultimately allowed him the scaffolding and proximity to middle and high schools to transition back at his own pace.
“We spend a lot of time at the [annual] budget meeting talking about special ed and transportation and the expenses associated with special ed, and having this in the district allowed us to go to that least restrictive environment gradually,” he said at a meeting this week. “And I know least restrictive is generally least expensive.”
Penacook resident David Armstrong addresses the facilities committee of the Merrimack Valley School Board on Monday, October 20, 2025. Credit: JEREMY MARGOLIS / Monitor staff
The Learning Center currently has an enrollment of 36 students, seven of whom come from other school districts, according to Julie Gaudette, the district’s director of student support services.
The building also houses a district-run food pantry, a gym that is used by many in the community, and the CSI Charter School as a tenant.
The renovation of the building would cost roughly $5.4 million, according to an assessment completed earlier this year, and would proceed over a number of years, as funding becomes available. District administrators have contemplated funding at least a portion of the project through the tuition fees received from districts that send their students to the Learning Center.
The building requires the installation of an elevator to make it accessible, as well as a new boiler, upgrades to the heating and electrical systems, and several smaller repairs.
Fred Reagan, the facilities director of the school administrative unit, has begun to receive estimates for portions of that work and would solicit bids for components of the project if it is approved by the school board next month.
Credit: GEOFF FORESTER/For the Monitor
Members of the board’s facilities committee – Wheeler Russell, Tracy Bricchi, Laura Vincent, Lorna Carlisle, and David Nesbitt – expressed unanimous support for the project.
“We’ve been talking about this since the 1990s and [I’m] ready to move forward on it,” said Vincent, who has served on the board since 1991.
Wheeler Russell said that the district must ensure that the project doesn’t impact district residents’ taxes or disrupt the services that the Learning Center provides.
“I think we have a very solid special education program, and I’m very hopeful that this will make it even better,” she said.
