The timeline for school construction in Somerville continues to be the source of fiery back-and-forth around the working group tasked with deciding the future of two campuses, which has faced setbacks from the schedules of the many people involved and revisions to overlapping processes.
The state’s School Building Authority earmarked funding last year for school construction in Somerville, where the Winter Hill Community Innovation elementary school closed in June 2023 over safety concerns and the aging Benjamin G. Brown School school has long been in need of renovation or replacement.
A Construction Advisory Group was appointed last fall to decide whether and where to rebuild Winter Hill and leave the Brown school as is, or to build a new school that could combine the two. The group will give its recommendation to mayor Katjana Ballantyne in October, who will make a decision based on that recommendation by January.
Matthew Daniels, a parent of a Winter Hill schoolchild who serves on the CAG, said at its June 10 meeting that people remained “shocked” that a construction timeline given in 2023 as five to seven years had been amended to 2031 – meaning those hoping to see a building open in 2028 had another three years to wait. (This development was reported in December, but a recent Winter Hill project coffee hour was when some residents learned of it.)
Ryan Williams, a Brown school parent who serves on the CAG, said the new school building estimate of 925 students – a possibility up from the original 600 – was another surprise for many.
“To hear 900 was not something that anyone was really familiar with outside of this group,” Williams said.
There have been a lot of questions about what more information the mayor needs to make a decision on the schools, Williams said.
When the meeting was opened to feedback from community members, that was the focus for one Winter Hill parent.
“An issue that we’re stuck on is that the mayor may not make a decision until January, and if the CAG is presented with their data and is coming to a recommendation in October, it’s not clear to us as the school community why it should take many, many months for the mayor to look at that recommendation – which I imagine would be one piece of paper – and come to her conclusion,” she said. “The fact that we’ve waited for two years to just have any sense of certainty about what is going to happen has been very difficult.”
Mayoral chief of staff Nikki Spencer responded, saying the mayor has heard that feedback “loud and clear,” and is “willing to give the CAG more time” to make a decision on its recommendation.
“I don’t think you’re understanding my point,” the parent replied. “I don’t want the CAG to have more time, I want the mayor to have less time,” she said, explaining that she doesn’t see why the mayor couldn’t come to a decision by November if the CAG makes its recommendation by October. “You know, it’s not going to be that difficult for her, because she’s had two years to think about what all the options are.”
Logistical complications
Spencer acknowledged that constituents expressed “frustration” to her at the coffee hour, but she’s also heard concern that the working group needed time for its own process.
The work can be affected by the lives of people involved. The group’s June 10 meeting was held online-only when Stacie Smith, of the Consensus Building Initiative, who is charged with leading the group, experienced a scheduling conflict. That drew repeated concerns from city councilor Kristen Strezo for “making people sit on a two-and-a-half-hour Zoom call.” During it, a consultant described the difficulties in finalizing a survey because it was hard to get people together as groups to give opinions. And Rich Raiche, director of infrastructure and asset management for the city, was not able to attend due to a family emergency, so updates on the Brown school were moved to the July meeting.
Though reports from coffee hours held for Brown and Winter Hill communities were expected, Raiche’s absence meant city director of communications Denise Taylor could talk only about the Winter Hill event she attended.
She reported “pretty strong turnout” and parents “still anxious to have clarity” with “concerns about where their children will be going to school.”
Process still emerging
It was at the Winter Hill meeting that many people learned of the 2031 timeline for school construction, Daniels said, and “people were disappointed there wasn’t more concrete information at the event. [It was] the first communication they’d heard in 18 months.” The city and mayor tend “not to answer questions directly,” Daniels said.
Also at this meeting, Amara Anosike, chief of staff at Somerville Public schools, presented on topics such as diversity, school location and school size, asking members of the CAG to consider these factors when asked their opinion about the final project. If the Brown and Winter Hill schools were combined, many students would have to travel much farther distance in dense traffic to get to school, outside researchers told the district.
The Dream Collaborative, a Boston architecture firm, described its work crafting a community survey, which has been reduced to five questions from 15 for various reasons. One concern raised by Williams was that the survey was overly complicated – written at a college level of comprehension that wasn’t “accessible” to all.
“They don’t understand the idea”
Marta Pastrian, a Brown school parent, said concerns were raised to her about the lack of Latin and Hispanic parent voices in the conversation regarding the future of the school.
In addition, “Everyone that spoke up was very clear that they don’t understand the idea of combining the schools,” which affected the ability to walk to drop off or pick up students and would result in a scale that would no longer feel like a community school.
The next CAG meeting is scheduled for July 14, when a revised survey will be presented with simplified language and with questions regarding broader city priorities moved to an optional section to prioritize feedback on the Brown and Winter Hill schools specifically.
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Travel times are a legitimate concern, and an issue of equity of access. It’s hard to know what else we could use the 115 Sycamore Winter Hill School site for, besides rebuilding the school there; It’s already plenty difficult to find parks and green space in the city. It seems very likely to me that whichever direction we go, we will have a school on that site in the long term.