Above: On June 11th, the School Committee went through a long To-Do list for grappling with the aftermath of the No vote on the Neary Building Project. (image cropped from Southborough Access Media video)
This week, the School Committee held its last regular meeting of the school year. But based on the issues related to the failed Neary Building Project and planned next steps, they will forego their summer break.
Wednesday night’s meeting covered several issues the committee plans to tackle this summer.
Members and NSBORO administration leaders discussed addressing parents’ immediate safety concerns, better analyzing buildings’ capacity and needs, and collaborating with the Select Board on next steps for school facilities planning.
Collaborating with and Working parallel to the Select Board
Superintendent Gregory Martineau recapped the Select Board’s plans to create an ad hoc K-8 PreK-8 School Research Committee. He noted that the school committee is the authority for many decisions related to the potential projects the ad hoc committee would research costs and details of. The School Committee’s responsibilities include grade configurations, educational plan, facility use, and potential decommissioning of a school.
Chair Chelsea Malinowski advocated that the School committee needs to provide input on a charge for the new committee, which might be voted on at their the Select Board’s upcoming meeting on June 17th. Member Roger Challen stressed on the importance of the School Committee’s input.
Malinowski said she believed the more committees collaborating on the efforts the better. She advised members to be on the lookout for information on future quick meetings to keep things moving. (Those will likely be over zoom.)
Malinowski noted that she hoped fellow members would support items that followed on the agenda. She believed there is work under the School Committee’s purview that they should direct the Superintendent and his team to do on their behalf. She referred to 11 “critical” tasks.
Given the immediate needs related to school facilities, the School Committee decided to proceed independently with safety reviews and planning efforts.
Martineau said he would be meeting the next morning with the Town Administrator, two Select Board members, and the Neary Building Committee (NBC) Chair to discuss the draft charge and intent. He would relay the School Committee’s work and intentions. (Malinowski also planned to share the results of School Committee votes with the Select Board Chair.) He noted that the committee’s data and analysis will dovetail any future work by a new ad hoc committee.
Neary Safety Review
Martineau said that he wanted to assure parents and staff that there are no environmental or safety concerns. His proposal was to bring in a consultant to go evaluate the many documents and reports that exist from the NBC’s previous work, recommend any additional texting, and write a report to share with the community.
He targeted August 1st for a preliminary report focusing on the most critical concerns.
The proposal was prompted by some parents who were alarmed by issues related to the existing Neary School that were flagged during recent tours, forums, and public debates.
The public was informed about Neary’s building deficiencies (including lack of a fire suppression system) by project proponents pitching the importance of investing in a new building. Environmental issues were also raised by project opponents who worried that old landfill uphill from the site could result in future leakage of toxins toward the building and grounds.
To address the concerns, the administration will contract a consultant for an Environmental Conditions Review and Assessment of Neary School.
Martineau confirmed and clarified the report would include:
- Safety
- Air quality
- AHERA asbestos reports
- Water testing
- Environmental conditions around Neary
The district hopes to contract Beta Group, which conducted what Asst. Superintendent of Operations Keith Lavoie called a “very efficient, very thorough review” of PFAS issues for the GonkPlex project at Algonquin Regional High School. The consultant will submit a proposal defining the scope of work.
If the cost can be capped below $10,000, funding could come from the facility rental revolving account without needing a School Committee vote. (Even if it exceeds that, since the vendor is on the state contract list, they can still move forward quicker than issuing a Request for Quotes would allow.)
Members discussed potentially including other schools in the review. Martineau said that would be a good future conversation. But for now he wanted to prioritize Neary as the oldest school building.
Additional Next Steps
Despite the wording of the agenda, the committee didn’t specifically discuss “grade configurations”. The discussion focused more on evaluating facilities’ status and space needs related to the needs for each grade.
Work Malinowski proposed undertaking covered more than just looking at Neary School. To better inform the new ad-hoc committee and the public, she identified the following tasks to undertake:
- Update Capital Plan
- Conduct evaluation of safety conditions/review reports
- Identify 6-12 month must-do’s
- Evaluation of septic at Finn and Trottier
- Structural analysis of Neary
- Update enrollment (to compare actuals and latest projections with past projections)
- Update the School Research Subcommittee’s 2021 reports on building occupancy (adding details on space needs for number of classroom and for specialized spaces for music, art, special education, etc)
- Respond to MSBA – input on why the no vole
- Mechanism to receive feedback from the community
- Develop an options table (including grade configuration and classroom needs)
- Send communication to Neary families – current and incoming
In discussing the item #7 (updates to 2021 reports), member Alan Zulick worried that they will be investing a lot of work, but failing to “move the needle for anything”. Martineau said he believe they have the data and just need to “synthesize that and package it into a presentation”. It could be a working document that gets updated as they receive questions and feedback from the public.
Under the response to MSBA, Malinowski noted that the simple Yes/No votes make it difficult to know why voters made their choices. She highlighted that a lower percent of families with school aged children had turned out than she expected. She suggested a short survey to try to get valuable data.
Zulick suggested going out to events to share the QR code. Otherwise, the community might fall back to its lower level of engagement. Martineau noted they have to do outreach beyond school families. Other suggestions from the committee included outreach through the Senior Center, library, daycare centers, and the Town’s Municipal Technology Committee (which conducts town surveys).
During the discussion, Challen noted that Malinowski had asked him to review the School Committee’s policy on Building Grounds Safety and Inspections. He described four annual inspections of facilities and another two that are “as needed”. 1
Malinowski suggested that the Policy Subcommittee take a look at a potential update.
Under Neary’s structural analysis, Martineau sought to clear up any misconception that the administration let the roof deteriorate. He clarified that 5-6 years ago, the administration identified that the roof would need to be replaced. Instead of pursuing MSBA funding to help pay for a replacement, they chose to pursue a new building project. At that time, they invested in repairs to extend the roof’s life another 5 years.
Since the building project failed, they now need to figure out what’s next. A roofing consultant is working to provide the administration with options, probably in July. He believed other structural analysis was covered by past reports and would be included in the Beta Group’s work.
