Over the past week, two key committees cast votes related to the Town’s plans for dealing with school building needs. Here are the highlights.
Last week, the School Committee made clear that they intend to keep Neary School open next year, without the use of modular classrooms.
Last night, the Select Board voted to approve a date for the Special Town Meeting to seek funding for the Neary School roof repair/replacement and feasibility studies for potential school building projects. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the date they had agreed on in prior meetings. Instead, it will take place a week prior on Saturday, February 28th at 10:00 am.
And after previously agreeing on which three options for studies to propose to voters, a Select Board member argued for adding a fourth, shorter term solution, to the list. He was unsuccessful in getting support for that this week, but the board hasn’t officially voted on the final wording of the STM Articles.
School Committee Position and Letter
In their December 10th meeting last week, School Committee Chair Chelsea Malinowski introduced the topic by making clear that she had disagreed with some of the comments made by people on other committees in the December 8th joint meeting about Neary School. And she told the committee that some had left parents wondering if Neary might be closed next year.
The chair was also concerned by a suggestion that the schools could use modular classrooms next year to give the Town more time to work out school building issues and avoid prematurely investing in Neary School’s roof.
Use of modulars for two years was part of the new Neary Building Project. In that scenario, each of the lower schools would have added a grade. The stated intent was to use the modulars for specials, rather than as the main classroom for students.
Malinowski had made her objection to that approach known in the meeting on the 8th. On the 10th, noting that it was a decision under their purview, she sought to make the School Committee’s position official. She told fellow members:
I went to the Neary band concert and orchestra concert last night and I was sitting there thinking we have such an amazing music program if we shoved kids into modulars we would lose all of that.
The board officially voted that Neary will remain open next year, and for the foreseeable future until a project is approved for a long term school building solution. They also voted that the school won’t use modular classrooms unless it is tied to a clear building project that could be completed within two years.
Committee member Roger Challen raised his worry that March 7th was too late for the Special Town Meeting. If the vote on Neary’s roof fails, that gives them less time to deal with next steps before the Annual Town Meeting in April. Others agreed.
You can read the committee’s full letter here.
Neary Environmental Concerns
The letter to the Select Board also addressed a concern the committee discussed earlier in the meeting. They asked the Select Board to follow up on the safety concerns the public has about Neary, given that some of the probes used to monitor gas from the landfill uphill under Lundblad field had been “lost”.
At this week’s Select Board meeting, the board asked DPW Superintendent Bill Cundiff about the situation. H told them his department believes the gas probes are still in place but have been covered up.
They are using GPS to attempt to geolocate the missing probes. If the effort is “unproductive or uneventful,” the DPW will issue a bid to install any missing probes prior to April.
Special Town Meeting in February
At this week’s Select Board meeting, Chair Andrew Dennington provided a different reason for selecting a new date. Town Moderator Paul Cimino won’t be in town for the initially selected date of March 7th.
The Chair told the board that February 28th worked for the Moderator, Town Clerk, and School Committee. Member Al Hamilton noted that he still believed that the winter meeting was “premature” and the Town wouldn’t “effectively” be ready. But he voted along with fellow members to unanimously approve the STM date.
Debate Over Article Wording
Dennington provided the board with his attempt to put what the board had discussed into words for STM Articles.
Article 1: Authorize funding for:
(A) schematic design for renovation of Neary School at existing site (2 grades);
(B) feasibility study with cost estimates for expanding Finn to 4 grades and closing Neary as a school (include consideration of Article 97 issues and environmental considerations) ; AND
(C) feasibility study with cost estimates for moving 5th grade to Trottier and moving a grade to Finn (include consideration of septic and wetlands limitations).
[Passage of this article without amendment would moot any need to consider Articles, 2, 3, or 4.]
Article 2: Authorize funding for schematic design for renovation of Neary School at existing site (2 grades).
Article 3: Authorize feasibility study with cost estimates for expanding Finn to 4 grades and closing Neary as a school (include consideration of Article 97 issues and environmental considerations).
Article 4: Authorize feasibility study with cost estimates for moving 5th grade to Trottier and moving a grade to Finn (include consideration of septic and wetlands limitations).
Member Tim Fling recommended changes to ensure that voters would have “apples to apples” data for comparison. For the options that currently just seek feasibility studies, he wanted to add the possibility that funding will also cover schematic design unless the projects are ruled out by major issues that can’t be overcome.
Cook agreed, but went even further. Quoting an Advisory member, she said that any obstacle can be overcome if you throw enough money at it. So that voters can truly compare construction costs, she wanted all of the options to cover schematics.
Fling also wanted the option for Finn & Trottier to specify that the study and schematics would include expanding the schools.
Hamilton argued for the inclusion of wording that would give architects “clear financial guidance on a not to exceed number” for the cost estimate for a constructed project. He wanted to avoid architects having a “blank check”, leading to designing buildings that voters can’t support.
Cook vehemently disagreed, arguing that architects for the last project were not given a blank check, and committee members had pushed them for tight budgets. She highlighted that municipal building construction costs are high because, unlike with private projects, contractors have to comply with municipal wage laws. She insisted any cap would be fruitless.
Fling suggested a compromise. Instead of putting a cap in the Articles, the Town would provide architects with a “financial guardrail” or “overall target”, so they would understand what kind of budget the Town could handle. Cook was still skeptical of coming up with an “arbitrary” number for what voters would support. But Fling believed that was something they could work out..
Debate over Potential Extra Article
Between the December 10th joint meeting and December 16th Select Board meeting, Hamilton met with the “demographer” who helped the Schools come up with enrollment projections.
Based on that discussion and his own analysis, he presented his opinion that in 15 years, the school population would decline and wouldn’t increase again. With that information, he recommended adding a fourth, shorter term scenario for voters to potentially study. (You can view his slides here.)
Instead of a full Neary renovation (for a school that would last 30-40 years), a less robust renovation would make it work for just 15 years. At that point, population would have peaked and it would be time to deal with Finn School. That would be a better time to take on a school building project that allowed consolidating schools.
Fling and member Kathy Cook disagreed with pursuing the option for multiple reasons.
Fling had previously, publicly advocated for a similar position. But after doing a lot of digging into the details and financials, he said he no longer believed it made sense. (Fling was the board’s representative on the former PreK-8 School Building Study Committee.)
One of the details in Hamilton’s proposal was keeping renovation costs lower by avoiding triggering the costly requirements to meet current building codes and install a sprinkler/fire suppression system. He claimed that evacuation plans are how you protect people in the buildings, and that the sprinkler is just for protecting the building itself. (It is worth noting that the school is a one story building.)
Fling told Hamilton that he didn’t believe they could avoid triggering installing fire suppression and some other costly upgrades. And based on the data he looked at, he believed a temporary renovation could end up costing more than a third of the cost of a full renovation.
Cook disagreed with Hamilton’s confidence in his enrollment assumptions. Referencing that Hamilton’s main proof point for future enrollment was birth rate statistics, she pointed out that there are other factors.
Cook said that enrollment experts won’t project out more than ten years because there is too much uncertainty. She noted that migration can also impact stats, and that no one had foreseen Covid and how that changed how people moved.
Cook also highlighted that the district has historically attracted young families that move in to put their kids in the school system, buying houses from residents seeking to downsize.
She was also skeptical of how the Town could study and get an accurate cost estimate for his approach, since work would be done a little at a time.
The option wasn’t voted on in the meeting. Dennington pointed out that Hamilton had previously voted along with the rest of the board to take the approach with just the three options.
Hamilton responded that was before he had more information and quipped that “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds”.
Member Marguerite Landry temporarily sided with Hamilton, noting that it was consistent with the School Committee’s position.
The other members rebutted their belief that the option wasn’t supported by the School Committee. That committee had been seeking a complete renovation of the school. However, it is worth pointing out that, over the summer, the School Committee had supported smaller Neary renovations that were proposed as options studied by the PreK-8 School Building Study Committee. It just wasn’t their preferred option.
Hamilton continually stressed that voters had rejected the new Neary Building Project due to the high cost. He told the board they need to avoid repeating mistakes.
Cook rebutted that she agreed about not repeating mistakes, just disagreed with what the mistakes were. She made clear in the meeting that she still blamed misinformation as the reason for the last project failing.
Public commenter Kristen Lavault pushed for the Select Board to add Hamilton’s renovation option to the list of choices for residents to select from. She pointed to an uncertain economy and high unemployment impacting residents like her.
Michael Nute, a member of the Capital Improvement & Planning Committee, also liked Hamilton’s option from the perspective of capital efficiency. He reminded that voters hadn’t liked the idea of cutting Finn’s life short. He pointed out that it’s difficult to consolidate schools when the building life spans are offset from each other.
Patricia Burns Fiore didn’t specify if she wanted that option included. But she told the board that she agreed with Lavault’s and Hamilton’s points worrying about the potential big costs of projects. She expressed frustration that she keeps hearing about what the School Committee “wants”. She stressed that the committee should instead be telling the public what it “needs”.
I think everyone in this town agrees something has to move forward in regard to these schools and in regard to specifically Neary. But when we just hear about this dream scenario of the of a brand new school and all that it could include, it’s foreign language. You have to bring this into a reality that people can afford.
Discussion of Other Article Details
Dennington said they were still working on costs to include in the Articles for the cost of the studies. But Cook reiterated that she already has an estimate. She previously spoke with the Owners Project Manager for the new Neary Project. He estimated that if they went with the architect who worked on that project, three studies would cost $750K. If they went with another firm, it would likely be $1M.
Although she referred to the $750K as $250K per study, she didn’t clarify if there were any assumed savings for bundling the studies, vs the cost for one study.
The board didn’t yet have costs to include in Articles, including the 5th Article to fund work on the Neary School roof. The expectation is that proposals from RFQs for a roof architectural/engineering firm will be in by December 19th.
At the School Committee meeting, Asst Superintendent of Operations Keith Lavoie said the goal is to have a contract with a timeline for deliverables by early next month. They will seek to get a preliminary “order of magnitude” cost estimate in time for the STM, followed later by a detailed report.
During the Select Board meeting, Fiore asked why the proposed Articles ask to study septic issues at Trottier. She pointed out that the projected peak student population of 487 was well below the septic capacity of 720 students for the building that was cited in a Neary Building Committee document. Members told her that they had learned there is an issue related to a “variance” that had been granted for the school that allowed the normal 28 gallons per day per student to be calculated as 8 gallons. But officials didn’t have details to share.
Burns urged that those details need to be explained to voters. The board agreed.
The Select Board will likely discuss the final wording of Articles in their next scheduled meeting on January 6th.
