Above: Survey results showed that survey respondents’ willingness to reconsider the Neary project skewed in different directions based on whether or not they have kids in PreK-8 schools. (graph by Beth Melo based on data in the Select Board meeting packet)
Tomorrow night, the Select Board will vote on whether to request an extension for getting voters’ approval to fund the Neary School Building project. The last time the question came up, the board was split. But the majority had been in favor of keeping the option alive, while the Town continues to explore how to handle school building issues.
On April 30th, MSBA (the Mass School Building Authority) approved covering a significant portion of the proposed project to tear down Neary School and build a new school for grades 2-5 in its place. But that funding required voters approving an estimated $68M of the $108.5M project.
The state’s commitment also came with a deadline. The Town had 120 days to certify the required votes by 2/3 of Town Meeting and the majority of ballot voters. Since both votes failed in May, the August 28th deadline couldn’t be met.
However, the state may be willing to grant an extension to the deadline. The Select Board scheduled a special meeting for this Tuesday, August 26th, to discuss making the request.
Earlier this summer, the board charged a new PreK-8 School Building Committee to help officials and voters compare costs, and pros and cons for maintaining/renovating/consolidating school buildings, or building a new one. Those options include both the Neary Project and alternatives that some vocal opponents had argued hadn’t been properly explored. The committee’s target is to have data to report to the board by the end of September.
In the meantime, the Select Board and School Committee issued a survey this summer to get more feedback on what people were thinking at the time of the public votes in May, and what they may be open to going forward.
The agenda for the Tuesday night Select Board meeting doesn’t mention the survey results. But they are likely to come up during the MSBA discussion, since they were included in the meeting packet.
The responses from the 36 question survey are detailed in 191 pages. Following those results are an additional 21 pages analyzing some of the responses. (According to Select Board member Al Hamilton, the analysis was his.)
The 766 survey respondents only represent 65% of the 1,178 voters who showed up to the Special Town Meeting in May, and over half of respondents didn’t attend the meeting.
Plus, the opinions on how to proceed going forward predate any report by the new committee. So, there’s likely to be some debate over how seriously to take the 39% of respondents that answered they “would definitely not support the same project if re-voted”.
As I’ve previously covered, the school building research is happening in parallel with the School Committee’s decision to ask voters this fall to approve $4M to replace Neary School’s roof. (You can read about that here.)
Updated (8/26/25 9:08 am): I replaced the graph after a comment from Al Hamilton pointed out that I mislabeled the groups. I had originally labeled them based on having/not having kids in grades K-8. The groups were actually split by whether or not they had kids PreK-8.
Why We Shouldn’t Spend $100 Million to Build a School Next to a Dump
Southborough just spent $4 million to clean up an illegal dump on town property—a problem our leaders ignored for decades until it became impossible, and expensive, to avoid. That experience should teach us something: when it comes to dumps, wishful thinking and neglect eventually come with a big price tag.
Now the town is considering putting a $100 million school investment next to, and downhill from, a capped waste disposal site. That means risking not just taxpayer dollars but also the health and safety of our children.
If history has taught us anything, it’s this: ignoring dumps is expensive. Building next to one is reckless. A dump is no place for a school.
Carl, here’s my challenge for you. Tell us exactly what chemicals and what gases you’re concerned about, and tell us why the wells and testing that have been set up, and the negative results they’ve shown, are insufficient or unacceptable. Note that the drinking water for the school is not coming from a well on-site. But be specific, otherwise this is just another scare tactic. What tests do you want to see and what would they have to show? If there is no threshold of acceptability then you’re saying that we have a Chernobyl in the middle of town, which I think everyone can see as kind of over the top.
Short Answer:
The list of compounds the Town of Southborough is mandated to test for in the groundwater around the dump site — indefinitely. It is likely the same list of compounds that concerned the previous building committee, which led them to design three additional monitoring wells near the school.
Michael, I have lived in town long enough to remember dumping trash into that landfill. The environmently concerns at that time were very low compared to today’s standards, so who knows what’s there. I have never agreed with Mr Guyer’s approach to concerns with issues like this, but the concern is real. Before we spend $100 million dollars and put children in that situation, what insight do you have of the future that you can garentee that it won’t become a problem. Thank answer is none. Why do we want to go there. I don’t. Find another spot for the school. In the long run it will be safer and less expensive.
Beth
Yes, I did the initial analysis of the survey. The full analysis can be found at the end of the Select Board Packet:
https://www.southboroughma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/6542?fileID=12822
One correction and one clarification with respect to your chart.
The group you labeled as k-8 is actually PreK-8. In the survey the PreK group is ages 0-4 so the group is really age 0 thru 8th grade.
The 2 groups require some context. The survey responses are highly skewed. The respondents in the Age 40-49 group are heavily over represented as are the group with with PreK-8 Children. To control for this I asked the Clerk to analyze the Town Census with respect to the towns demographics. 31% of the households in town have a child under 14. This corresponds almost exactly with the survey PreK-8 group. 69% of the households do not have a child under 14 in the home.
I did most of the analysis using this PreK-8 Voting Age Adults (~31%) vs Non PreK-8 Voting Age Adults (~69%) to provide context and control for the skew in the data.
In the end the survey tells the same story that Town Meeting and the Voters told. There is substantial support for a New Neary in the Pre-K-8 group but overwhelming opposition in the much larger Non PreK-8 group. Even within the PreK-8 group support for a New Neary may be slipping. In this group the “Initial Position” with respect to the New Neary was164 Strongly Supporting vs 68 Strongly Opposed. When you look at whether there was interest in reconsidering the project 105 said they had no interest in reconsideration and 127 were extremely open to reconsideration.
There is a lot more data to be examined.
Thank you for pointing out my error. I replaced the graph with correctly labeled demographics.