NARRAGANSETT — When voters approved a $21.5-million school building project two years ago, the goal was to repair, renovate and upgrade the town’s schools, making them ready for the 21st century.

This fall, as the project winds down, Narragansett’s schools will emerge with many of those goals accomplished.

All three buildings will be safer, healthier and more attractive places to learn. Students will see new ceilings, new floors, new windows, new doors and some areas that were completely gutted and renovated.

Other improvements won’t be so obvious, such as new roofs and new heating and ventilation systems.

But not everything that was planned in the long-awaited project has been accomplished. Some jobs, cut as the scope of other jobs changed and expanded, driving up costs, will have to wait.

Raymond Ranaldi, a member of the School Building Committee, estimates that the schools still need some $10 million in work, which means the town will not be able to view the bond-funded, voter-approved project as a fix-all it was originally going to be.

“An enormous amount of work was done,” he said, “but it isn’t complete.”

Among the areas that still need attention: middle school floors, the elementary school driveway pattern and the high school track, stands and football field, Ranaldi said.

For students who return to school next Thursday, however, there will be some obvious changes.

One of the most striking is at Narragansett Elementary School, where the office area has been moved to the front entrance. The former office area will now provide space for an all-new prekindergarten area.

The offices were moved to allow for better security. In fact, all three schools will now have inner doors that are locked after students have arrived for the day, forcing visitors to enter through the main office.

Another obvious change is at the high school, which has six new state-of-the-art science classrooms with lecture and lab areas. And the music room no longer has a sloping floor that led to water problems at the low end of the room.

While the project has touched all three schools, the bulk of the work was at the elementary and high schools because they are older and needed more attention, say members of the School Building Committee.

The improvements at the elementary and high schools included new ceilings, new hallway floors, handicapped accessible restrooms, new windows, new exterior doors, new or nearly all-new roofs, new or refinished doors, new internal door hardware, cafeteria and gymnasium upgrades, new heating/ventilation systems, new or upgraded fire alarm systems, new sprinkler systems, exterior repairs and asbestos abatement. The high school also received air conditioning in most areas, as well as renovated locker areas, auditorium upgrades and exterior drainage repairs and improvements to stop flooding and moisture problems.

The middle school improvements include rest room renovations, new interior door hardware, interior wall repairs, ventilation system upgrades and exterior repairs and a new dehumidification system. In addition, all windows were removed and then re-installed with new flashing.

Supt. Katherine E. Sipala said students and staff will see a “marked difference” at all three schools, even if there are things that remain to be done. For furnishings, for instance, she said the district had a “bare-bones budget.”

“I think we have some people who might say we didn’t get this or we didn’t get that. Chalkboards, new electrical outlets,” she said. “Certainly it wasn’t a total renovation that everything was torn apart and rebuilt.”

John Rock, the project manager for Providence-based Dimeo Construction, hired to oversee the project, said one of the key decisions during the two-year project came in June, when Dimeo recommended that work that was originally planned for this fall be pushed up and done this summer, before school starts. The change is helping to save some $350,000 in management and oversight fees, he said. Another $350,000, saved from some of the work that was done, has been put back into the project to stretch the $21.5 million as far as possible, he said.

Those changes have pushed back the first day of school two days, to next Thursday , but the end date, June 24, has not changed because teachers have agreed to reschedule two professional development days, Sipala said.

Even with the later opening, some work will continue after school starts. For example, hallway ceilings might not be up in some areas as the new systems await final inspections.

But Rock said the goal is to have everything finished by the end of November.

In the meantime, Ranaldi said the building committee is preparing a report that shows what was accomplished and what wasn’t, with recommendations for what needs to be done over the next five years.

“The next committee is going to be able to look at our final report and see what we didn’t finish,” he said.

redgar@projo.com