A grateful and relieved Edward Bouquillon, superintendent/director of Minuteman High School, looked ahead Wednesday morning to something he and others have been working toward for eight years: breaking ground on a new school building.
The final vote tally in Tuesday’s 16-town special election was 12,158–5,320 (69%–30%) in favor of funding the $145 million project. Four towns said no: Carlisle (46%–53%), Sudbury (45%–55%), Wayland (48%–52%) and Belmont (28%–72%). However, Belmont was the only one of those four that will still be a member of the Minuteman school district after the new school is finished, so it will be on the hook for a share of the construction costs. Boxborough, Carlisle, Lincoln, Sudbury, Wayland and Weston voted earlier this year to withdraw from the district as of July 2017. Belmont’s earlier “no” vote at Town Meeting last spring (which happened after the deadline for expedited withdrawal from the district had passed) was what led to this week’s 16-town vote.
“The fact that [Belmont is] such an outlier in this whole process should probably send some sort of signal to Belmont residents and perhaps their elected officials,” Bouquillon said. “Whether they’re just not getting it or choosing not to, I don’t know, but I’m more concerned with the kids.”
Bouquillon thanked Lincoln residents on Wednesday for their approval margin of 88%–12%. Last year, Lincoln officials lobbied other district towns for an intermunicipal agreement that would have provided some form of compensation for the fact that the new school building will be located within Lincoln, but the idea never gained traction during negotiations over the revised Minuteman regional agreement.
Workers should be able to start construction in spring 2017 on a 20-month building project resulting in occupancy in time for the start of the 2020-21 school year, Bouquillon said. That would complete a project that began almost exactly eight years ago, when he filled out a statement of interest for funding from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA).
“It’s the longest-running feasibility study in the history of the MSBA,” he said, adding that the agency itself had been established only a year before Minuteman submitted its statement of interest.
The future of the current building site
Along with construction details, Bouquillon and others must also now turn their attention to the question of what to do with the old building it’s replacing and the Lexington acreage it sits on.
“I cannot think that all I’m doing here is building a new high school and moving on,” he said. “This campus is perfectly positioned to become an institution of learning for K-through-life that continues to support workforce development as well as the economic vitality of the region.”
The school district owns the 66 acres of land and plans to explore educational and public-private partnerships with ideas that will be in keeping with the site’s educational mission. Bouquillon said he has already had informal conversations with organizations including post-secondary educational institutions, as well as public and private groups involved in education, recreation (the old building’s swimming pool might be replaced in some fashion, for example), engineering and life sciences. Such companies could offer on-campus work co-op programs for Minuteman students, he noted.
The Minuteman School Committee will eventually issue a request for letters of interest to potential partners with proposed new uses for the site and then develop an overall vision for the campus before inviting developers into the process, Bouquillon said.
Right now, Bouquillon is simply thankful that the long process is of getting the new building funded is over. “Now I can focus on my kids, teachers and building,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been freed to be an educator.”
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