The Swellesley Report

More than you really want to know about Wellesley, Mass.

Wellesley Special Town Meeting approves $2.5M feasibility study on future of Upham/Hardy Elementary Schools

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The Yes votes loudly outnumbered No votes at Wellesley’s Special Town Meeting Tuesday night at Wellesley Middle School to approve the borrowing of $2.5 million to fund a feasibility study and schematic design for the Hardy and Upham Elementary School project. The question now is whether the study will recommend that either of the schools be renovated or rebuilt, or whether an entirely new facility should replace them both.

The meeting took a bit under 3 hours, with discussions touching on topics such as redistricting that will inevitably take place in the wake of whatever school building decision is made. (Disclosure: We just caught the end of the meeting on Wellesley Public Media, which will replay the action and make a record available on demand in the days to come.

The Town intends to execute this project in partnership with the Massachusetts School Building Authority, which could issue the town a grant.

The town approved $1 million in funding earlier this year for a feasibility study related to Hunnewell Elementary School’s possible renovation.

Wellesley Special Town Meeting all about Hardy/Upham Schools project

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Wellesley Town SealThe Town of Wellesley sent this public letter to Town Meeting members:

In accordance with the provisions of Section 4, Chapter 202, Acts of 1932, as amended, Town Meeting Members are hereby notified that the 2018 October Special Town Meeting, will be held in the Wellesley Middle School Auditorium, 50 Kingsbury Street, beginning on Tuesday October 2, 2018 at 7:00 pm.  Please reserve  Wednesday October 3rd, 2018 for additional time if needed.

The Board of Selectmen approved the warrant in its meeting last evening. The warrant for the Special Town Meeting has been posted on the website, at Town Hall and Wellesley Square.

At this Special Town Meeting, the School Committee and the Board of Selectmen will ask for $2.5 million, to be expended under the direction of the School Building Committee and the Permanent Building Committee, for feasibility and schematic design for the Hardy/Upham elementary school project. The Town intends to execute this project in partnership with the Massachusetts School Building Authority.

Upham, Hardy schools to be fall town meeting topic

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For those of you with college-bound kids: you might want to push them into consulting.

The Board of Selectmen request that Town Meeting Members hold Tuesday, October 2, and Wednesday, October 3, for a Special Town Meeting to consider appropriating funds for feasibility and schematic design to address the needs of the Upham School, potentially by renovating it or by rebuilding or replacing it, either at that site, the site of the Hardy School, or elsewhere. The project is expected to be carried out in partnership with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA).

$1 million in funding was just approved for a feasibility study related to Hunnewell Elementary School’s possible renovation.

Upham Elementary School in Wellesley
Upham: First in line?

Wellesley Board of Selectmen push Hardy/Upham School vote to Fall 2018

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At the Monday, May 14 Board of Selectmen’s meeting the BoS and the School Committee joined to discuss the June Special Town Meeting. Their focus: whether the warrant for the meeting should be reopened and whether one of the votes regarding the Hardy/Hunnewell/Upham (HHU) project should be pushed to October.

The decisions:

  • Article 2 —  which asks the Town to appropriate $2.5 million for a feasibility study and schematic design of Upham School — will be presented and voted on at an additional Special Town meeting tentatively targeted for early October 2018. You can see the exact warrant wording here. 
  • Article 3 — which asks the Town to approve spending $1 million for a feasibility study of Hunnewell School — will be presented and voted on at the June 5 Special Town Meeting, as originally planned. You can see the exact warrant wording here.

Hardy, Hunnewell, and Upham are the three elementary schools under consideration for either renovation or a teardown/rebuild scenario. Wellesley has 7 elementary schools.

The language in the warrant does not name Hardy School. School Committee Chair Michael D’Ortenzio explains why this is:  “The Article 2 was a vote on doing feasibility for both Hardy and Upham, not just Upham. Though the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s (MSBA) process only allows the naming of one school, the Town boards are committed to doing feasibility studies on both sites…the project is nominally the Upham School, but that school may end up being built at either the Hardy or Upham locations. The MSBA is aware of our plans and has confirmed that we can study both sites as we have outlined to the community. The School Committee, Board of Selectmen, and School Building Committee are committed to a thorough study of both buildings and sites.”

The discussion centered around whether the Town as a whole would be best served by 1) delaying the consideration of Article 2 from the June Special Town Meeting and moving that discussion to a Special Town meeting tentatively targeted for October and 2) going forward with June’s Special Town Meeting regarding Article 3

The logic behind the change came down to communication. School Committee member Sharon Gray said, “We discussed this as a School Committee on Friday. I don’t think we came to a consensus about whether we wanted to go forward now or push it back to the fall. I think it’s fair to say that we were on the fence collectively.”

Ultimately, the School Committee, ended up on the side of the fence that collectively agreed that pushing the Article 2 vote to fall would  allow the opportunity for additional communication about the project among community members and Town Meeting members. “If we push Article 2 to the fall, we will want to engage the various PTOs early in the school year,” one committee member suggested.

The emergence of Article 2 without any mention of Hardy fired up supporters of keeping that school and prompted town officials to clarify why Hardy wasn’t mentioned in the warrant.

The Board of Selectmen went into the meeting inclined to take Article 2 off the June warrant. Vice Chair Jack Morgan said, “The Selectmen have discussed and tentatively concluded that our inclination to take Article 2 off the warrant for the June Special Town Meeting would say we want to keep the community informed to the best of our ability.”

The discussion then turned to Article 3. Morgan said, “I think we should go ahead with the [June] Special Town Meeting regarding article 3.”

Hunnewell School, First Day
Full speed ahead for Hunnewell school warrant

 

The School Committee wasn’t on the fence about this one, voicing strong support to move forward with a vote at the June 15 Special Town Meeting. The thought was that going forward with Article 3 would shed light on the best pathway to walk with the decision-making and information-gathering process about Hunnewell School. “We should go ahead with the June Special Town Meeting, hopefully get the funding for that feasibility study, and find out. The intent of the feasibility study is what can we do? What are the options to solve the physical and educational deficiencies that we see in the building?” a School Committee member said.

Gray said that on May 24, Town Meeting members will be welcomed to tour Hunnewell School.

The upshot

A motion was made to postpone Article 2 until a Special Town Meeting in the fall. The motion was seconded, voted on, and passed.

Article 3 will be voted on at the June 5 Special Town Meeting at 7pm in the Wellesley Middle School auditorium.

Here’s the warrant as it originally appeared.

School committee meeting — Hunnewell, Hardy, Upham update

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Hunnewell School — Request for Quotation approved

At the Tuesday, April 24 School Committee meeting, the Committee vote to approve a Request for Quotation (RFQ) for a Hunnewell School design. As part of a larger Scope of Feasibility Study the RFQ for the school, built in 1938, will study the question of whether it can be renovated. If a renovation is deemed not feasible, it will be decided which elements of Hunnewell can be used and incorporated into a new building. A focus of the study will be on what the building looks like structurally. If it is found that the structure can’t be reused or reworked, decisions will then need to be made about what elements can be taken from that building and used in a new design.

On May 2 there will be a mandatory site visit for companies interested in bidding on the contract.

On May 9, there will be a follow up meeting for those companies.

On June 5, there will be a Special Town Meeting to discuss Article 3, which is being put forth by the Board of Selectmen and the School Committee. In summary, here’s the article:

Will the Town vote to appropriate $1,000,000 or another sum to be expended under the direction of the School Committee for a feasibility study of the Hunnewell School including architectural and engineering services and all associated costs related to the renovation, reconstruction, addition, consolidation, or replacement of the Hunnewell School?

Hardy and Upham — the rumors continue to swirl

We’d heard rumors around town that it was decided at the April 24 School Committee meeting that one of the elementary schools would be closed. In the interest of putting those rumors to rest, know that there are still many more hoops to jump through before any such decision is made.

Superintendent David Lussier said that the town is committed to fully exploring both of the sites. “The emphasis is on doing a Feasibility Study on both the Hardy and the Upham sites,” Lussier said.

According to Vice Chair Matt Kelley, “Districts must explore a range of options and not enter into the process with a preconceived notion of what the answer is going to be. A necessary part of the process is to study both sites. And that’s what’s going to happen.”

You can see the video of the meeting on Wellesley Media.