Wellesley School Committee weighs accelerated timeline for AC

The Wellesley School Committee, joined by the town’s head of facilities, this week reviewed the possibility of accelerating plans for installation of 350-plus air conditioning units at district buildings that currently lack AC. The committee didn’t vote on the issue at its Aug. 25 meeting, citing a need to first take in a Permanent Building Committee (PMC) discussion on AC this Thursday, Aug. 27.

A citizen petition submitted for Special Town Meeting this fall urges the town to speed up the AC installation process, and Facilities Management Department Director Joe McDonough responded to that petition during the School Committee meeting. He also shared a memo from FMD responding to the petition (see the full petition article language at bottom of this post). The meeting began with a couple of Wellesley Public Schools parents advocating for acceleration of the AC installation schedule, citing equity, health, educational, and other reasons.

The town is looking to install AC at Bates, Fiske, and Schofield Elementary Schools as well as the Middle School in summer of 2028, whereas the petition advocates for that timeline moving up by a year at least for the elementary schools. The town had at one point looked to install the AC in 2029 or 2030, so indeed has actually accelerated the program from there. Though proponents of a shorter timeline point out that the topic of installing AC in the older schools has been up for discussion as far back as 2018.

School Committee Chair Niki Ofenloch began the session by recapping how we got here. Town Meeting in April 2025 approved $182k for a feasibility study, which resulted in the committee approving an AC window unit option (rather than going with more more expensive options). The next step would be to hit up the Advisory Committee and then Special Town meeting in search of design funds—Wellesley’s construction protocol is to start with feasibility, move on to design, then finish with construction.

“There’s always been a sense of urgency and priority around this project from both the School Committee and community, and the window unit option on its face does seem simple. Though I think we know that the underlying electrical work
that needs to occur is the biggest driver in the cost and the time of the project,” she said, acknowledging that some very hot days in June fueled even more of a community push to get AC units installed sooner than later.

McDonough, who said his group became aware of the citizen petition on Aug. 18, prefaced his remarks by emphasizing the long and successful track record that FMD and the PBC have with municipal projects. He stressed that the current plan for air conditioning is “already very, very aggressive,” with requests for design and construction funding to come within a year of each other.

“In the 15-plus years I’ve been here, we’ve never done that on any other major building project under that kind of accelerated schedule,” McDonough said.

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Regarding the proposed acceleration beyond this, he said FMD’s review found that the schedule does not allow adequately for design review, funding, bidding (and sub bidding), cost estimates, permitting, and more. FMD contends that numerous connected steps must be sequenced and can’t overlap. Public bid design and construction differs greatly from that done in the private sector, he said, and McDonough pointed to assumed construction while school’s in session that won’t be permitted due to the negative impact on learning (and doing it at night would be pricier). McDonough went into much greater detail than this during his briefing.

FMD, McDonough said, plans to go forward with its design funding request at the Advisory Committee meeting on Sept. 2, with the goal of seeking Special Town Meeting approval in the fall, followed by a request for construction funding next year. The aim would be to install AC at the three elementary schools in 2028, with middle school installation likely getting pushed into 2029, he said.

“We will between now and when the project is bid continue to look for opportunities to accelerate individual activities,
where the acceleration does not compromise what we talked about as being priorities, quality, funding certainty, procurement requirements that I mentioned, and school operations,” McDonough said.

Committee member Bob Sullivan felt out whether any temporary solutions might be feasible, say with portable units and generators, but even that sort of stopgap would involve more complex approvals than you might think due to public bidding regulations and building permit requirements, according to McDonough. (Wellesley Public Schools Supt. David Lussier said there has been exploration of temporary units that could be used in libraries at the elementary schools that could serve as cooling areas).

Committee member Illana Nissenbaum sought assurances that the extensive electrical work required to support new AC units couldn’t be done while school was in session, and McDonough confirmed this.

Chair Ofenloch says she’s looking forward to how the PBC’s conversation goes on Thursday.

“If there is if there’s a responsible way to move this forward quickly, I don’t know that anyone would want to be standing in the way of that. I just want to make sure that we’re responsible for everyone, for the students that we have responsibility for, for the staff we have responsibility for, and for the taxpayer resources that we have a responsibility for making sure that we’re using them wisely and and getting a good result with limited risk,” she said.

2026 STM Warrant – School Air Conditioning

To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate, transfer from available funds, borrow, or otherwise provide a sum or sums of money for the design, engineering, permitting, procurement, acquisition of equipment and materials, construction, reconstruction, alteration, remodeling, installation, commissioning, and other costs incidental and related to providing air conditioning and related HVAC improvements, and associated electrical, utility service, mechanical, ventilation, building, site and code-compliance improvements at any one or more of Katharine Lee Bates Elementary School, Joseph E. Fiske Elementary School, Otho L. Schofield Elementary School, and Wellesley Middle School; including, without limitation, architectural and engineering services, owner’s project management services, preparation of plans and specifications, bidding and procurement;

And further, to appropriate a sum or sums of money for the advance or early procurement of equipment and materials, including long-lead items, for temporary or enabling work, for phased construction, and for utility service and electrical capacity work, in each case as necessary to permit the installation of air conditioning and related HVAC improvements at Katharine Lee Bates Elementary School, Joseph E. Fiske Elementary School, and Otho L. Schofield Elementary School during the summer of 2027;

And further, that it is the objective of the Town that air conditioning be installed at Katharine Lee Bates Elementary School, Joseph E. Fiske Elementary School, and Otho L. Schofield Elementary School during the summer of 2027; that the School Committee, the Permanent Building Committee, and the Select Board are requested to pursue the design, procurement, permitting, construction phasing, and financing plan necessary to meet that objective; and that they are requested to report to the 2027 Annual Town Meeting, or to any Special Town Meeting held before it, on the measures taken, including the funding plan and schedule for any construction appropriation, and, if that objective is determined not to be achievable, on the specific constraints requiring that determination; or to take any other action in relation thereto.

Note: Post updated after originally being published to clarify that AC discussions have been happening since at least 2018, as a reader pointed out.

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