To the editor:
What follows is my personal perspective.
Lincoln has always been committed to a progressive education, and generations have spent untold hours and dollars to provide that education in this town. I want us to choose a school that the current parents of this town embrace for their children, so I canvassed many of them to understand their perspective. Two key elements are the school’s disrepair and the progressive educational infrastructure that hubs provide to kids. These hubs provide an innovative, collaborative, configurable environment for learning.
Many of today’s parents have kids who started school around the time Town Meeting voted down a new school in 2012. Those same parents will not see their kids in this new/renovated school, even if we vote for and bond a school option at the end of this year. I am impressed by the parents’ remarkable commitment and determination with no or limited benefit coming to their children from this school project. They are primarily thinking about the next wave of children to pass through the school.
I thought about option C, but it felt too similar to the design that Town Meeting did not support in 2012.
Through a number of friends with an eye to the architectural beauty and preservation of our structures, I also was influenced by the unique way our school campus nestles into the fields and forest surrounding the buildings. We barely notice that we are entering school grounds in a car or on foot from the trail system as the trees tower over the structure. Educators and kids look out from numerous vantage points at the natural setting which provides natural light.
So I thought about the L options that would maintain and upgrade this vision for our school.
I don’t know why it took so long to see the light, but earlier in May, the picture started to unfold. I listened as many in the town shared what they were looking for in their visions. The hubs and L design were the clear requirements for consensus between these two groups. L3 is the least expensive of the original three hubs options and the most expensive of the L options. It encompasses Lincoln’s commitment to progressive education and sustainability. New families are the lifeblood of a town and also a valuable demographic that I clearly support.
Please join me in voting for option L3 on Saturday morning in the ballot vote and again in the afternoon in the standing vote(s).
Sincerely,
Peter Watkinson
9 Wheeler Rd.
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