Hunnewell School in Wellesley opens doors for a final farewell

June 17, 2022 by Deborah Brown

There’s something special about the elementary school years, a time when kids learn to work and play well with others, not run with scissors, and absorb concepts of language, literacy, and numbers. The building where so much growth takes place looms large to its young students. But as we heard over and over during Wednesday’s Farewell to Hunnewell event, “It looks so much smaller now.” If you’ve ever visited your former grade school, you understand. There are so many memories squeezed into those K-5 classrooms, it hardly seems possible that the walls can contain them all.

Hunnewell School, Wellesley — My tour companions, Hunnewell graduates Duncan Brown and Grace Seaborn, pose for one last picture outside the Hunnewell sign, an iconic photo-op spot known to all of the school’s students.

The open house gave current and former students, their families, and community members one last chance to visit classrooms before Hunnewell, built in 1938, is razed and replaced with a new 76,500 sq. ft. 18-classroom school slated to open in early 2024. Superintendent David Lussier told me at the event that fencing will go up around the school within days, marking the area as a construction zone. Staff and students will be divvied up among other schools under a swing space plan come fall. More on the school construction plans.

As I wandered the halls where I spent so little time volunteering back when my kids were at Hunnewell, a pack of excited friends darted past. “To the music room! Run!” When their school is going down, who’s going to tell the kids they can’t run in the halls if they feel like it? Not me.

Outside, I bumped into a trio of young men who I once could have named by spotting them across a crowded playground. No more. These were now college students, stopping by to remember the old days. Lifelong friends, said the mom of one of the guys. Hunnewell tends to have that effect on people.

I looked around for my tour companions, who had long since lost patience with my frequent stops to talk to old friends. A quick phone call gave me the predictable response. “We’re playing on the playground,” they said. Of course they were. Some things never change.

Free school transportation for Hunnewell Elementary School families: Sign up by April 8

April 5, 2022 by Bob Brown

The Hunnewell Elementary School building is slated to be closed for good at the end of this school year to make way for a new structure in 2024. Families are in for exciting swing space action spread across four other schools until the new building opens in early 2024, if all goes according to schedule.

The Wellesley Public Schools (WPS) system hopes to minimize challenges for parents who might have to shuttle kids to multiple schools, and reduce overall drop-off and pick-up traffic, and score sustainability points by offering Hunnewell families free busing.

wellesley school bus

The sign-up deadline is April 8.

To register, go to the WPS Fee Payment link. Click “Login”, and enter your username and password. Click on the photo of the yellow school bus located in the middle of the page to begin the registration process. To enroll Hunnewell student(s) only, choose the second Activity for FY23, “Hunnewell Bus Transportation enrollment.” More information on WPS transportation services.

Meanwhile, WPS has cut bus fees for all from $521 to a still-painful $500 under its FY ’23 budget just approved at Annual Town Meeting. Over the next 5 years, WPS looks to eliminate transportation fees entirely as one of its “moonshot” goals, Supt. Dr. David Lussier said recently at Town Meeting.

Wellesley votes to approve funds for Hardy, Hunnewell school projects

December 8, 2021 by Bob Brown

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

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

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.

[gview file=”https://media.theswellesleyreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/12184834/Sample-Ballot-EVABS.pdf”]

New Wellesley public school proposal considers closing Upham earlier than expected

September 25, 2021 by Deborah Brown

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

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

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.

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

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