A nearly $17 million plan was unveiled Monday for a new school to replace the Kennedy-Longfellow School as soon as the 2026-2027 school year, though it may be the year that follows.
The East Cambridge campus was always “going to continue to be a CPS school,” interim superintendent David Murphy said at the top of the meeting, referring to the Cambridge Public Schools district.
Nearly 50 community members attended the first community meeting for what’s called the 158 Spring St. Capital Improvement Project – the night before the Kennedy-Longfellow School saw off its last classes of students.
In the coming months, a feasibility analysis will determine various “possible scenarios” for the space’s future, Murphy said, emphasizing that the timeline and aspects of the proposal are tentative.
“These types of strategic decisions only come around so often,” Murphy said.
Murphy broke down the timeline into an operational timeline for the facility itself and a “decisional” one for programming that will take place in the building, but on how resources will be allocated, Murphy said, there will be “three conversations” about the future of the K-Lo: a conversation to determine the building’s future, about programming and about the fields and outdoor resources surrounding the school. Of a projected $16 million to 17 million, there will be $10 million going into “enhancing building infrastructure” to extend the lifespan of the building, with the rest going toward the fields and outdoor resources and “how to best utilize them.”
An ending and a beginning
A recommendation to the School Committee to close the 51-year-old, K-5 school at 158 Spring St., East Cambridge, was first presented by Murphy at a Dec. 10 meeting with K-Lo community members. Before that came meetings where he showed how a disproportionate number of number of high-needs students were housed at the K-Lo, accompanied by low test scores – and alluded to a necessary change.
A major point of Monday’s presentation was making clear the district’s goal for this project, which is to “put more students in a better position to succeed” with a particular focus on higher-need students – including but not limited to students with disabilities, students who are learning English as a second language and students from low-income households.
Much of the discussion was about the “asset” the school represents, Murphy said, pointing to its rare “flexibility” given its size and the fields surrounding it, which are ideal for play and sports.
There were several areas for improvement noted in the presentation, broken down into categories of aesthetic, operational and facilities for the students. Murphy said that operational areas of improvement – such as plumbing, electrical systems and HVAC – will be prioritized.
“We are not building a new school,” Murphy said. “We know that this building has enough things wrong with it that, based on the financial limitations of this capital improvement project, we’re going to have to prioritize these operational pieces first.”
Next steps include the completion of a feasibility study – specifically, identifying challenges and opportunities within the facility – and holding additional public engagement sessions to inform the community about aspects of the initiative and its objectives, he said.
By next fall, the district hopes to appoint a construction manager and begin considering “multiple scenarios for strategic use” of the space. The school can fit 650 students, but the number of students placed there will be decided by programming needs, Murphy said.
Funding and the future
One parent felt $10 million was low for building improvements given the investment in other buildings nearby such as housing projects and labs.
“This is a Cambridge community investment,” Murphy said. “Ultimately, you as a community at large are well served by the investments that were made … and it’s also true that the nature of the finance system that we are living under is such that there is not going to be another investment of that magnitude in the short term.”
No state School Building Authority money is helping with the project because of its relatively swift timeline – nor does it fall within the “types of projects the MSBA does funding for,” Murphy said.
No decisions have been made about what school will be at Spring Street next, but there is a “distinct possibility” it will be home to another existing CPS school.
Dates have not been set for the next community meetings coming over the summer and into the fall to share proposals and “engage public thinking,” Murphy said. “There’s a lot more to do.”
“It’s okay to disagree, it’s okay to have lively debate. We should also not lose sight of how fortunate we are to be having this conversation,” Murphy said.
This post was updated June 25, 2025, to remove a remark about The Amigos School that was unrelated to the Spring Street property and to correct the timeline of a reopening for the building.
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