MERIDEN - Have a third-grader in the school system? Under the most optimistic scenario the High School Study Committee can come up with, he or she just might get to spend senior year in a one of the city's new high schools in 2017.

That's the upshot from the committee after it met Monday to talk about what's ahead in its work to fix up or replace the city's two high schools, Platt and Maloney, which opened in 1958.

A seemingly Byzantine system of consultants, bids, architect drawings, steps of local and state approval, and the need to determine what education will look like in the next decade, awaits the project, said Brian P. Daniels, the committee chairman, and Glen A. Lamontagne, the school district's assistant superintendent for finance and administration.

Daniels, who is also a city councilor, suggested the fall of 2018 was probably a more conservative guess for a new or renovated school to open.

The existing schools are both considered to have served the city extremely well and remain structurally sound but are worn and outdated in some ways, with the piping and boilers on their last legs.

Talk of replacing or renovating the schools has been going on for at least a decade. The committee was formed six months ago to make a recommendation to the council, following the February 2008 release of consultant Fletcher-Thompson's study, which estimated costs for various replacement and renovation options.

The committee has been making steady progress since then, Daniels said, working with city officials to figure out options for buying more land or using the Platt and Maloney sites, and determining if building new, renovating or some hybrid approach may be more beneficial, Daniels said.

The committee is also pressing the Board of Education to spell out exactly what it wants for the new high schools, but Lamontagne and committee and board member Tom Bruenn explained it's something of a chicken-or-the-egg scenario.

The board could present a lofty ideal of what it wants, Lamontagne said, but pinning down something more specific that has input from staff members is an ongoing process that will take time and is partially dependent on whether the city chooses to renovate or build from scratch.

The board submitted a report to the committee outlining some general requests: high-tech classrooms with wireless Internet access, TVs with cable and DVD players, LCD projectors, laptops, lots of science labs, and freshman academies - areas where freshmen would be partially segregated to ease their transition to high school.

If the board opts to renovate or go for a hybrid approach of building new wings but saving the large auditoriums, gyms and pools, it could have considerably impact on what can be offered, Lamontagne said.

Members of the committee plan to put out a request for proposals for a consultant to give them a better idea of the costs of the various options. The Fletcher-Thompson report used 2007 prices and estimated the cost of renovating the two schools at between $29.8 million and $39.7 million.

The committee is looking to get a cost figure with today's prices and have the analyst estimate what the cost might be when it's time to build. Committee members estimate this study will cost about $9,500.

The committee hopes to present its findings to the council in late summer or early fall, Daniels said.

"People say this is a crazy, long process," he said, "but you have to start."

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