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With decades of experience building schools across Massachusetts, Fontaine Bros. has seen K-12 construction evolve alongside changing educational priorities, building systems and community needs. High-Profile publisher Anastasia Barnes recently interviewed Dave Fontaine Jr. of Fontaine Bros. about the trends shaping school construction today, the challenges of building on active campuses, opportunities to improve the construction process, and what districts are prioritizing as they plan for the future.
Anastasia Barnes: Fontaine has built schools across Massachusetts for decades. What are you seeing change most in the way K-12 projects are being designed and built today?
Dave Fontaine, Jr.: A couple of the trends we’ re seeing have been around for some time but are certainly still present in the market. Number one, investment in sustainability continues to be steady and grow in many cases. On a lot of our school projects, we’ re installing geothermal systems for heating and cooling. Agawam High School, Clinton Middle School and Longmeadow Middle School are all geothermal projects.
Geothermal well drilling at Clinton Middle School
The other thing we’ re seeing is districts solving multiple needs in one project. More districts are building consolidated schools. They may have two separate middle schools in a town and build one new building that consolidates those programs.
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David Fontaine, Jr.
Longmeadow Middle School is a good example. We’ re building a new middle school on the site of one of the existing middle schools, and ultimately it will consolidate the town’ s two middle schools into one. The new building is 100 % ground-up construction. As part of the project, we’ ll demolish the existing middle school and build fields once the new school is open.
AB: School construction comes with some unique logistical challenges, particularly when work is happening on an active campus. What does it take to successfully phase and manage these projects while keeping students and staff safe and minimizing disruption?
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DFJ: We look at these campuses as being active 24 / 7, 365 days a year. Obviously, there are breaks and times when they’ re less active, but they’ re still used throughout the year for summer programs, camps and sports activities. A lot of the campuses we work on also have tracks, tennis courts and other spaces that are open to the public as town amenities.
A huge part of our job is making sure we don’ t disturb those ongoing activities and that we’ re doing everything we need to do to keep students, faculty and the community safe during construction. Having experienced and knowledgeable teams is key. There are lessons learned and best practices from doing this work for decades that we implement every day.
Before we ever put a shovel in the ground or drive a fence, we work hard to understand the existing operations: Where is pickup and drop-off? At what times? Which routes do students walk to and from school? How do we make sure we’ re not creating barriers to the way people currently move, park or come to and from the school?
We design our logistics and phasing around those existing operations as much as possible. We’ re also constantly communicating with the district, principals and superintendents. Any time something is going to look different when
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people arrive at the school, we want to communicate that in advance.
AB: From preconstruction through completion, where are you seeing the biggest opportunities to improve the construction process— whether through technology, early collaboration, prefabrication, or another approach?
DFJ: We’ re using different strategies across our projects. Prefabrication and being as efficient as possible with what gets produced is certainly one example. We also think the technological advances with AI are going to significantly and positively impact construction.
So much of what gets done on a dayto-day basis between design, construction and procurement involves coordinating vast amounts of information. That information can be in different buckets that aren’ t necessarily set up to communicate with one another across disciplines.
We’ re using AI from preconstruction and design review through construction coordination across our subcontractors and internal teams to share information better. We’ ve also created a venture studio within Fontaine called Udor Studios named after my great grandfather – where we’ re building our own software to improve our processes and projects.
I don’ t see AI displacing the need for specialized skills or experienced people who know how to build these projects. We see it as an opportunity to do more analysis and take deeper dives into information. Our approach is that we want to understand it deeply, be a leader in it, and contribute our perspective on how it can best integrate with really skilled builders.
AB: What are the biggest construction challenges facing K-12 projects in Massachusetts right now, particularly when it comes to costs, schedules, labor, materials, and increasingly complex building systems?
DFJ: There are cost challenges everywhere right now. We’ re seeing inflation and volatility across the market generally, and that is certainly having an impact on construction. Costs are still high, even though some parts of the market have slowed down. We’ re also seeing some nervousness around making big investments, and towns can sometimes struggle to gain consensus on project support.
The workforce is something we always focus on as well. We’ re trying to bring more people into the industry, bring in apprentices and show people that construction is a great career path.
Liz Wambui, our director of diversity and community impact, is constantly at career fairs and union representative meetings, making sure we’ re connecting people who want to be in the construction
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industry with actual opportunities. Everyone talks about the workforce and the aging workforce as a challenge, and we agree. We’ re trying to make sure we’ re actively doing something to help build that workforce back up.
AB: Looking at the overall K-12 market in Massachusetts, what are school districts prioritizing today, and where do you see the greatest needs and opportunities over the next several years?
DFJ: We’ re seeing communities invest in new buildings that are meant to last for generations. They’ re focused on durability, good sustainable systems and low operating costs. I think districts will also continue to consider consolidation projects. While they’ re addressing one building, they may be able to address the needs of multiple buildings by thinking about the next several decades.
Some districts are doing a good job with that long-term planning: What is enrollment doing? Are people moving into town? Is the student population decreasing? Rather than simply saying,“ This building is old, and we need to replace it,” they’ re looking at the district level, where the town is growing and what their long-term needs are.
I also think there can sometimes be a perception that public school projects are a simple building type, but these are major community investments. They can include everything from abatement and demolition of an existing building to turf fields, swimming pools, 800-person auditoriums and lab spaces that are fit out at basically the same level as colleges and universities. These schools are much more than the old block classrooms and twoby-two ceilings. They are sophisticated facilities involving a wide range of intricate building systems and trades.
Construction technology LiDAR scanning
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