Wellesley votes to approve funds for Hardy, Hunnewell school projects

December 8, 2021 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

Wellesley voters in Tuesday’s Special Election overwhelmingly cast ballots in favor of debt exclusions to fund the construction of new Hardy and Hunnewell elementary schools. Only about one in five eligible voters cast ballots.

Here are the preliminary results as reported by the town:

79% Yes, 21% No on Hunnwell
81% Yes, 19% No on Hardy

This is based on ballots electronically tabulated. Final results will be posted at a later time and will include hand-counted ballots.

The Special Election followed Town Meeting’s approval for the projects’ construction funding in October.

The new Hunnewell and Hardy schools, slated to open in 2024, will replace outdated facilities. The schools are each being designed to accommodate up to 365 students and 18 classrooms within a 6-school district. Upham Elementary School will be closed.

The Yes for Wellesley Students outfit that urged residents to vote for both debt exclusions celebrated the results: “THANK YOU for supporting these much-needed new schools for our young learners.”

Construction costs for the schools will add up to more than $100M, according to the September Advisory presentation.

Residents will see a property tax increase as a result of the debt exclusions. We heard during Special Town Meeting that the peak median annual increase would be $753, though an online tax impact estimator will give you a better sense of your own increase.

Wellesley votes in Special Election today, Dec. 7

December 7, 2021 by admin Leave a Comment

Wellesley voters today will consider two questions for a debt exclusion to fund the construction of a new Hunnewell Elementary School and a new Hardy Elementary School.

Those casting their ballots in-person for Wellesley’s Special Town Election can do so until 8pm. Voters actually in line at 8pm will be allowed to vote.

If you are voting by mail, your completed mail-in ballots must be brought to the drop box outside of Town Hall no later than Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021 by 8pm.

New voting locations

Precincts A & C vote at Bates Elementary School, 116 Elmwood Road
Precinct B vote at Sprague Elementary School, 401 School Street
Precincts D & E vote at the Warren Building, 90 Washington Street
Precincts F & G at the Shipley Center, Dana Hall School, 142 Grove Street
Precinct H vote at the Tolles Parsons Center, Council on Aging, 500 Washington Street

Online calculator helps you do math on tax impact of Hardy, Hunnewell projects; register to vote by Nov. 17

November 15, 2021 by Bob Brown 4 Comments

Based on how easily Wellesley Special Town Meeting Articles 2 and 3 passed in support of funding the proposed Hardy and Hunnewell Elementary School projects, it’s highly likely that the public will vote in favor of corresponding debt exclusions on Dec. 7.

(Read the election warrant and see a sample ballot embedded below)

The projects have their detractors, who spoke at Town Meeting about considering 1 project or the other for now and trying to avoid sky high pandemic period materials costs, among other issues. But if the public does vote for the debt exclusions and you’re a property owner who intends to stay here, you’re going to want to know how much those debt exclusions are going to add to your annual property tax bills.

We heard during Special Town Meeting that the peak median annual increase would be $753. But now the town has rolled out an online tax impact estimator to give you a better idea of your own situation (we’ll need to sell a few more ads to cover our increase). Though note that calculations are based on Fiscal Year 2021 assessed valuation of properties.

No dollar amounts are mentioned in the ballot questions themselves. Doing so would have involved the town taking some intricate steps involving state statues, as described here.

Register to vote by Nov. 17

The last day to register to vote in the Special Election is Wednesday, Nov. 17.

Residents may register online or at Wellesley Town Hall. The Town Clerk’s office will be open extended hours on Nov. 17, until 8pm.

You must be a Wellesley resident and a U.S. citizen on the date of your registration. Voters must be 18 years old by election day.

Special Legislation also permits Vote by Mail for the December election. Visit Vote by Mail ballots for information.

Download (PDF, Unknown)

New Wellesley public school proposal considers closing Upham earlier than expected

September 25, 2021 by Deborah Brown 14 Comments

The Wellesley Public Schools have a lot of balls in the air.

First off, construction on a teardown/rebuild on the existing footprint of the Hunnewell Elementary School in Wellesley Square is slated to begin next summer, provided the project gets the needed votes from Town Meeting this fall and from the general public at a special election in December. While construction goes on, students will need to be educated for 18 months in off-site swing space.

“The original proposal was for those students to be reassigned by grade level to the other elementary schools with space to host additional classes. A complex endeavor to be sure, with Hunnewell classes being separated, shifted to new schools, and then returning to their new school,” Wellesley Public Schools Supt. Dr. David Lussier wrote in an email replying to our questions.

Also on the calendar is a proposed teardown/rebuild of the John D. Hardy Elementary School, with a construction start date planned for next summer.

The new Hunnewell and Hardy schools are being designed to accommodate up to 365 students and 18 classrooms within a 6-school district.

Upham School, which along with Hardy was in the running to be revamped, ultimately was not chosen for a rebuild. The School Committee’s plans are to close Upham but retain ownership of the building and the property until such a time that the town’s elementary school enrollment increases to the point when a 7-elementary school model is once again needed.

At the same time, the district also has put into place plans for full elementary redistricting (slated to occur in 2024) upon the completion of both the Hunnewell and the Hardy building projects, and the consolidation from 7 to 6 elementary schools, with the closure of Upham School. “Those plans were completed and approved in early 2020 and were part of the community decision to assess building a new school on the Upham vs. Hardy sites,” Lussier said.

As part of these plans, Upham School was supposed to remain as the Upham School for another two years. However, many Upham families left the WPS system last year during the pandemic and enrolled their students in private school. During an update by WPS at the Aug. 31 School Committee meeting, it was reported that Upham is down to 175 students, 13 teachers, and 12 sections.

The falling numbers at Upham have led to a new proposal put together by members of the School Committee working on the building projects and the WPS administration. “Even prior to the pandemic, Upham’s numbers had declined to such a degree that there were single sections of some grade levels. The pandemic has only led to a further decline in Upham’s enrollment, despite district efforts to reassign students to that school,” Lussier said.

At a June School Committee meeting Lussier said, “…we’ve been dealing with significantly lower enrollment at Upham now for some years. In order to have a critical mass of students and to maintain a vibrant school community we are trying to use the tools available to us, and one of them of course is choice, allowing families to enroll.” To that end, enrollment was opened to families who might want to transfer their students there. Only 2 families signed on. Later, 1 of those pulled out.

During a Sept. 23 Zoom meeting attended by School Committee representatives and Lussier, the Upham community was informed of a proposal that could lead to the closure of Upham at the end of this school year, and an earlier-than-expected redistricting of that school’s students. Lussier emphasized to us that this is a proposal, not a decision.

Teachers and staff at Hunnewell and Upham were earlier told of the proposal, which has started to generate buzz across town.

Under the proposal, the idea is to redistrict Upham students at the end of the 2021-2022 school year and use the Upham building as swing space for the Hunnewell community until 2024, when the new Hunnewell is expected to open its doors. Under this plan, Upham will no longer serve its current community. Upham students would be redistributed to other schools. Lussier cites minimizing overall disruptions and transitions to students and families as the reasons for the change.

As laid out by Lussier during meetings, the proposal includes the following phased-in approach to redistricting:

Beginning in SY2022-23, Upham students would be redistricted to Bates and Sprague, per the approved redistricting plan
The Skills program, the in-district, specialized program that serves students on the autism spectrum, would be relocated to Hardy. This program, which draws students from across the district, was already slated to move to the new Hardy building, which is being customized to support this program.
Hunnewell students, rather than being sent to multiple schools during their school construction, would move as an entire school into the Upham building in the fall of 2022 and then return to their new school in February of 2024.
Phase 1 of this proposed early redistricting plan would only involve redistricting the Upham school. The remaining redistricting plan would be implemented in Phase 2 in 2024.

Lussier said, “We can certainly appreciate the feelings of the Upham community to this proposal, which would accelerate the timeline for that school’s closure by two years. We would not be contemplating this approach if we did not feel it was responsive to each of the aforementioned needs while minimizing overall disruptions/transitions to students and families.”

This is all far from a done deal. “This proposal is being shared with the intent of soliciting feedback from the community before any decision is made by the School Committee to proceed,” Lussier said.

Upcoming meetings:

The Hunnewell community has been invited to a 7pm Zoom meeting on Monday, Sept. 27 to learn about “important updates on the WPS elementary building projects and their impact on Hunnewell moving forward.” Supt. Lussier and and School Committee representatives will be on hand for this discussion.
Wellesley School Committee will have its regular meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 28 at 6:30pm. Among the agenda items: Swing space and phased redistricting.
A WPS community webinar on swing space & redistricting is slated for Thursday, Sept. 30 at 7pm.

Separately, the Wellesley Advisory Committee has been reviewing Town Meeting articles related to the school projects, including at its Sept. 22 meeting.

More: Hardy, Hunnewell, Upham Facilities Projects

Hunnewell School project price tag increases by $2.4 million—thanks, COVID

July 28, 2021 by Deborah Brown 1 Comment

The Hunnewell Elementary School project has received Zoning Board of Appeals approval from the Town of Wellesley, bringing the teardown and rebuild project another step closer to an anticipated groundbreaking in summer 2022.

Hunnewell School, fall 2020 — Hunnewell Elementary School

Before that happens there are several details to be addressed by Compass Construction, the project management company tasked with building the new 75,000 square-foot, two-story, 19-classroom building. Senior Project Manager Jeff D’Amico reported to the Wellesley Permanent Building Committee that there are a couple of “hardship” areas that are making it difficult to fully comply with ADA ramp construction.

D’Amico identified one of the spots as the intersection of Hampden and Brook Streets, where there’s an electrical manhole in the way and “we need to lower the grade to make it work. A location like that doesn’t simply end up being a couple of grand. It can quickly spiral into the tens of thousands by the time you redo a curb ramp, mess around with the public utilities…so we’re going to look for clarification. Is this something the project has to take on,” he said.

In addition, the skyrocketing cost of building materials such as steel, aluminum, lumber, and PVC during the COVID-19 pandemic has added an expected $2.4 million increase to the project.

The total project budget at this time is $54,835,467.

“The number that was floated out at Town Meeting in December 2019 was $52,853,000,” D’Amico said, “So it’s about $2 million higher than we were about 2 years ago.”

During Special Town Meeting on Oct. 25 – 26, there will be a funding vote. From there, a townwide debt exclusion vote will take place on Dec. 7.

Hardy School update

The Compass team currently is responding to Massachusetts School Building Authority questions on the project scope and budget of building a new elementary school at the Hardy site.

Traffic issues loom large as Permanent Building Committee members all but tore their hair out when discussing how to increase busing and walking at a school site where it is estimated that 45% of the school population will be driven by their families.

The goal is to devise a plan that will eliminate queueing on Weston Road. When the idea was floated of implementing a circular drive that would go around the entire school, PBC member Suzy Littlefield observed, “That’s a lot of asphalt for 20 minutes a day.”

Vice chair Michael Tauer asked whether the Town’s priorities are “…having green space or is it letting people drive their cars to schools?”

A traffic study is expected to be completed by the end of the summer, at which time the issue will be revisited.

Construction on Hardy is anticipated to begin in 2023.

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Fallen tree temporarily adds climbing structure at Wellesley’s Hunnewell school

October 20, 2020 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

A large tree topped during this past week’s windstorm, landing among the playground equipment at Hunnewell Elementary School in Wellesley. Sharp-eyed parents immediately called Principal Ellen Quirk, and before long the Department of Public Works was onsite to caution tape the area around the climbing structures that were damaged when the tree crashed down.

tree down at hunnewell elementary school — (Photo by Paul Cramer)

It is to be determined whether the play structures, which are closed for now, can be repaired. In addition, the integrity of the other trees in the area will be reviewed. Hopefully, those trees will be judged sound, as Hunnewell earlier this year lost its much-loved 200 year-old White Oak which graced the front courtyard area, after it was deemed by an arborist to be a high-risk tree.

Hunnewell School, Wellesley — DPW workers remove an uprooted tree at the Hunnewell School playground. Photo credit: Lindsay Swanson Butler.

Elm Bank Reservation trees also took a beating this past week, as did this big catalpa tree in front of Wellesley town hall.

Wellesley elementary school project updates—Hunnewell nuts and bolts; Hardy/Upham swing space

September 11, 2020 by Deborah Brown 1 Comment

At the September 9th School Committee (SC) meeting, SC Secretary Sharon Gray gave an update on the latest progress toward building a new Hunnewell Elementary School. Gray said that SMMA architecture firm team members gave a detailed public presentation of the civil engineering aspect of the Hunnewell project at a Planning Board meeting the previous day. Major talking points were water and sewer systems; traffic and parking; site circulation; utilities, drainage, and pretty much any other nuts-and-bolts building topic you could come up with.

The next meeting about the process, which will also be a public hearing, is October 5. Details to follow.

Hardy/Upham—swing space discussion

Although the School Building Committee has not yet put forth its recommendation for which of two elementary schools — Hardy or Upham — should be replaced, swing space discussions continue to loom large.

Of the three possibilities Gray reviewed, the most likely plan of action will be to build behind whichever school will be replaced. In this scenario, students would simply use the current Hardy or Upham school as swing space until construction on the new school is completed. Doing so would cause the fewest disruptions to students and families. In addition, there would be no expected scheduling impact for the project, which is expected to break ground in summer of 2023.

Anther plan discussed was creating a “mod farm” (a school made up of modular classrooms) sited at Hardy or Sprague. But at an estimated additional cost of $7 million dollars for a solution that doesn’t even include a cafeteria or a gym, that seems unlikely to happen. Also unlikely to come to pass would be the use of internal swing space after Hunnewell School’s expected 2024 completion. Such a plan would delay the Hardy or Upham School’s completion by one year.

Superintendent David Lussier appeared to favor building behind whichever school will be replaced, saying, “The goal is to create the fewest transitions for kids. Educationally, we’ve committed ourselves to reduce those transitions as much as we can.”

Upcoming important dates:

School Building Committee meeting: Friday, Sept, 11, 5pm
See the agenda
Please email the SBC for a Zoom link to participate in public comment: [email protected]
The meeting will be live streamed via Wellesley Public Media

School Building Committee Hardy/Upham Webinar Community Forum: Thur., Sept. 17 at 7pm. Residents who wish to participate in the webinar must use this form to register in advance and receive the Zoom link.

The forum will be broadcast live by Wellesley Media on Comcast Channel 8 and Verizon Channel 40, and live streamed on the Wellesley Media Government Channel.

School Building Committee decision on new school site, Sept. 24
Details to follow