This week, the PreK-8 School Building Committee discussed its work pulling together information on potential school building projects. Meanwhile, the Southborough School Committee has been discussing asking Town Meeting voters this fall to spend about $4M to replace Neary School’s roof.
[Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, I was unable to watch the Southborough School Committee’s meeting that took place last night and included agenda items relevant to these topics.].1
School Building Survey Reminder
Earlier this summer, the Select Board and School Committee issued a survey to the public to gather opinions about school building issues/potential projects. In Tuesday night’s PreK-8 Building Committee, the public was updated that the tentative deadline for feedback is this Monday, August 18th.
If you haven’t taken the survey yet, you can do that here.
Neary School Roof
About five years ago, the Southborough School Committee supported the decision to put off replacing Neary School’s roof. Instead, they invested in repairs to “extend the life” of the roof by five years.
The expectation was that Neary would either be renovated or torn down in the near future. Under the proposed project they asked voters to support at the Special Town Meeting and ballot in May, the current building would only have been needed through June of 2026.
In discussing how to proceed after the votes failed, the School Committee requested an updated assessment of the building’s safety status. At their August 7th meeting, members discussed a report that purportedly warned that the condition of the roof was too rough to put off replacing it much longer.
In the meeting, member Denise Eddy referred to details from the report that she said indicated exposed seams could allow the roof to be blown off if it isn’t fixed.
The district administration estimated that replacing the roof, and associated engineering costs, will total between $3.75MM and $4.25MM. Since it would take too long to seek funding support through the Mass School Building Authority’s accelerated repair program, Superintendent Gregory Martineau recommended bringing the full Capital Expense request to Town Meeting voters this fall.
The Article would be added to the Warrant for the Special Town Meeting scheduled for October 27th. The target is for work to begin this coming spring.
The School Committee expected to submit a “placeholder” Article for the Town Meeting Warrant in time for the Select Board to discuss at their August 19th Meeting.
During their meeting, the committee didn’t specifically discuss the concurrent work being done by the PreK-8 Building Committee to help the Select Board and School Committee determine next steps for a school building project. The options being researched include ones that could result in shuttering or rebuilding Neary.
PreK-8 Building Committee Update
As I’ve previously covered, the new PreK-8 Building Committee is working this summer to pull together details on costs, logistics, and issues for several options for handling Southborough’s school buildings. (You can get a refresher on the full list of projects and details they are researching here.)
Neary Building Repairs
While the building committee didn’t specifically discuss the School Committee’s recent decision, replacing the Neary roof came up as one of the measures covered by Option C “Minimal renovation of Neary”. That is described in the matrix as including “deferred maintenance” only, and labeled a short term solution.
Tim Fling noted that the roof and window replacements wouldn’t trigger an issue, but if other improvements were made, they “would have to be staggered” over a few years. He explained that the trigger requiring bringing the building fully up to code is spending over 30% of the appraised value of the building improvements within 36 months. He referred to school roof and window replacements as exempt.
But Martineau raised a potential catch on that exemption. His impression was that if you add a third project (like installing fire suppression or replacing the HVAC system) the roof and windows replacement costs are included in the calculation. Fling wanted that double checked, since he hadn’t seen it in the information he read on the state’s website.
Mark Davis noted that the code triggering would also require meeting the “Energy Stretch Code” which would require replacing the façade and the windows.
Member Beth Whitcoff specified an assumption that a near term renovation project would include replacing the roof and abatement of asbestos in the music room, but not replacing the windows. (Superintendent Greg Martineau later clarified that two areas of the building need asbestos abatement and bi-annual inspections. But a short term fix wouldn’t include abatement for the entire building.)
Later, during public comment, resident Rebecca Dente asked why the committee was including in its research of options including using Neary School without full improvments. ” bringing it fully up to code. ” I’m really concerned that we as a town are saying that we’re okay continuing to include an option where we don’t make a building code compliant.” Whitcoff noted that the option would be to give the Town time and added, “It’s not an unsafe building”.
Educational Considerations Discussion
In addition to the original matrix, the group looked at a color coded matrix that members Kelly Conklin, Witcoff, and Laura Kaufman (also of the School Committee) purportedly developed with Martineau. It focused on the educational requirements they considered “the goals for educational excellence and the standards they should strive to meet”. But later, when pushed on the issue, they clarified that not only were the criteria provided by the district, but the assessments were as well.
The “Educational considerations analysis of scenarios” spreadsheet, also referred to as “the Heat Map”, listed 17 educational criteria. (For each criteria, under each column for schools grouped by six projects being studies, criteria is shown as “Yes” (meets criteria), “Yes with trade-offs”, “Needs to be determined”, “not applicable”, or “Does not meet the criteria”.)
Public commenter Betsy Rosenbloom questioned the source for the subjective judgements included for some of the criteria, which went beyond objective “factual assessments”. As an example, she pointed to the “appropriate grouping of students on buses”. She noted that whether or not it’s acceptable to have 5th & 8th graders on the same bus had been a topic of debate at the Special Town Meeting in May. During the back and forth it became apparent that the source for the Yes/No answers was the district administration, deferred to for “its expertise”.
Whitcoff responded, that Rosenbloom’s point about subjective details was well taken. She said the language should be “neutralized”. The committee is also asking for some of the detail behind the assessments.
Commenter Mary Tinti followed up. She said that she had hoped that the Building Committee members were going to add their perspectives and expertise, rather than just repackaging what the school had previously provided the public. She was hoping for their “assessment”. For example, when reading about the workability of using Trottier for grades 5-8 she assumed the chart reflected a unanimous assessment by the sub-group. But based on the answers to Rosenbloom’s question, she didn’t think that was accurate.
Fling responded that under the charge, “our opinions are supposed to be subdued and based in fact” and use the “expertise sitting here” to vet the items and bring them “back to some kind of factual point”. The point was to pull together all of the data, and fill in missing data, then share that with the public. They aren’t the decision makers.
Rosenbloom stressed that for transparency, the committee needs to make clear to the public what the source for information is. That includes specifying the Heat Map is was provided by the district, rather than assessment that was made by the committee members. (A member of the committee noted that the Heat Map represents the answers to just one column in the committee’s matrix, “Educational Considerations”. Their matrix will link to the Heat Map.)
In my review of the Heat Map, the only building project options that didn’t clearly violate any of the listed criteria involved expanding/renovating Finn School or building new 4-6 grade schools (options D, F, & G). The map appeared to rule out “Option B” (which was also the “Plan B” touted by some opponents to the original proposed building project) for not meeting more than half of the listed criteria. (Although, it wasn’t clear to me why it didn’t meet one of them — the appropriate student grouping for PreK-2nd graders on buses.)
And one of the criteria includes an improvement to the status quo that requires a change in school buildings, “Reducing student transitions between schools”.
Additional Questions and Issues “On the Horizon”
During the meeting, in answering a question about using Finn or Woodward as an “early childhood center”, Martineau raised that the buildings should account for universal PreK as something “on the horizon”. He referred to the change from half day to full day Kindergarten that was adopted after years of discussion. He said “if you look at the landscape of what’s coming next” that’s the inclusion of universal preschool.
During Public Comment, resident Andrea Hamilton questioned the finding on the Heat Map for row 7 (space requirements for Spec. Ed.) under “Option F” (building a new four grade school). Her impression was that it would only include one room for each of the two programs for students with very different needs – the Therapeutic Learning Program (for students who experience social, emotional, or behavioral difficulties) and Castle Program (for students with autism). She pointed out that the four grades covers 60 months of students’ ages. The state restricts students in the same room to being within 48 months of each other. If the district pursued that option, it would require a state waiver. Martineau confirmed that the criteria chart should be changed to reflect “Yes with trade-offs” rather than a simple “Yes”. He qualified that there is flexibility for space uses and they have to look at the “incident rate”, making sure there are enough students who meet criteria for each program.
Later, member Howard Anderson asked about the status of information the committee had asked the district for related to building sizes, numbers of classrooms needed, etc. Martineau responded that the committee’s work is in parallel to work his team is doing on behalf of the School committee. He explained that they requested “detailed room assignments, staffing, all of the the details behind supporting some of the rationale around ‘Does it meet, or does it does it meet with trade-offs, or does not meet?'” Until they present and discuss it with the School Committee, it’s “still a work in progress”.
Anderson noted that he was confused about the space requirements for special education, and how the spaces can be split for multiple uses. Martineau confirmed that mapping the spaces and answering those questions are part of the work they are still working on.
Stay Tuned
Last night, the Southborough School Committee held another meeting. The agenda included relevant agenda items covering:
- Article Language for Fall Town Meeting – Neary Roof
- Update on School Building Tasks from 06/11/2025
- Update on PreK-8 Committee
a. Review of PreK-8 School Building Committee Options: Educational
Considerations - and PreK-8 School Building Survey
As I noted, I wasn’t available to watch the meeting. So news on any updates out of those discussions will have to wait. But based on the prior meeting, I expect some kind of update, or a Capital Expense Article, to be on the agenda for the Select Board’s August 19th meeting.
That meeting should also include a request from the building committee to extend the deadline for completing their matrix until the end of next month.
The committee is next scheduled to meet on August 26th. On Tuesday, member Tim Fling (who is also on the Select Board) noted that since their term is through the end of September, he believed earlier deadline for the matrix was a clerical error.
- If I learn that any of the discussions at the August 13th School Committee meeting included changes to the information presented at the prior meetings, I’ll update readers. If I learn that any of their discussion included changes to the information presented at the prior meetings, I’ll update readers. (Hopefully the Select Board Meeting on Tuesday, August 19th will include an update on the latest status.)
