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Minuteman HS project*

Two letters to the editor: fund the new Minuteman school

letterTo the editor:

On September 20, we will be asked to vote on funding a new Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical School. You will recall that in the spring Lincoln voted to leave the Minuteman district, but as that change does not take affect until July of next year, we still have a voice in its governance.

As many of you are aware, this is a terribly complicated issue. As the Lincoln representative on the Minuteman School Committee, I have been pondering how to best present this issue to our voters here in Lincoln. Given that Lincoln chose to leave the district, is it best for us to sit this out and let what happens happen? Of course, we are still members of the district and as such, we have an obligation to see our membership through in a responsible manner. In addition, all but one of the remaining 10 districts have already voted in favor of funding the new school, so a “yes” vote will be supporting the will of the majority.

In order for the School Committee to authorize a new school building, all 16 towns in the district had to vote in favor of funding the project. All of the towns except Belmont approved the funding. The School Committee then exercised the option to implement a district-wide vote. If the collective majority of all 16 towns vote for funding the new school, the vote will stand. The state of the current building is such that the cost of refurbishing it is roughly equal to, or possibly greater than the cost of building a new school.

Let me be clear: we in Lincoln will not be responsible for funding the new school. This school will reside in Lincoln, and our children, if accepted, may opt to attend this school and the town will pay their tuition, but responsibility for paying to build the school will be on the 10 remaining towns, not Lincoln. On September 20, please vote yes to authorize funding of the new Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical School.

Sincerely,

Sharon Antia
165 South Great Rd.

To the editor:

On September 20, the 16 communities that comprise the Minuteman High School district will be asked to vote on whether or not to fund a new high school. This is a complicated issue which will have NO financial impact on Lincoln tax-payers.

In the spring of this year, Lincoln voters chose to leave the Minuteman High School District, but that will not take effect until July 2017. Meanwhile, as current members of the school district we are asked to vote on this important issue. If you feel strongly, as we do, that all kids should have an equal opportunity for an education which fits their learning style, we urge you to take the time to vote for the new school building. Polls will be open from noon to 8.

Sincerely,

B-J Scheff and Joan Seville
1 Harvest Circle

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Letter to the editor: vote for new Minuteman school building

letter

(Editor’s note: For more information, see “Minuteman project going to district-wide vote” (Lincoln Squirrel, July 14, 2016).

To the editor:

On Tuesday, Sept. 20, voters in the Minuteman District will go to the polls in a special election to determine the fate of the Minuteman High School building project. I urge my fellow citizens living in the towns of Acton, Arlington, Belmont, Bolton, Boxborough, Carlisle, Concord, Dover, Lancaster, Lexington, Lincoln, Needham, Sudbury, Stow, Wayland and Weston to join me in casting a vote on that day between the hours of noon and 8 p.m. (If you won’t be in town on September 20, please contact your Town Clerk’s office about getting an absentee ballot.)

As superintendent of the Minuteman district, I have been involved in this project since its inception. Working with the Minuteman School Building Committee, Minuteman School Committee, member towns and the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), I believe we have jointly designed a project that all of us can be proud of. For me, a new Minuteman High School:

  • Supports the continuation of high-quality career and vocational-technical education for our students that will improve the region’s local workforce and enhance our economic vitality
  • Provides a safe, modern facility specifically designed to provide 21st-century career and technical education along with relevant and rigorous academics
  • Addresses long-standing structural, mechanical and handicap accessibility issues that limit its educational effectiveness for all students
  • Safeguards the commitment of $44 million from the MSBA to keep down costs to local taxpayers
  • Enables Minuteman to charge out-of-district towns a capital fee to cover their portion of the costs of a new building
  • Retains Minuteman’s regional accreditation by the New England Association of Schools & Colleges (NEASC)
  • Avoids “Plan B,” a scenario that would require member towns to spend more than $100 million on repairs to the existing building without any financial assistance from the MSBA
  • Demonstrates a strong and unified commitment that may compel new cities or towns to join the district to provide access for their students
  • Represents the most affordable option for local taxpayers

To learn more about the project or to view a list of polling places in your town, please visit the Minuteman website at www.minuteman.org.

Sincerely,

Edward A. Bouquillon (Director/Superintendent, Minuteman High School)
10 Mill St.

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Minuteman project going to district-wide vote

mm1Residents of all 16 towns in the Minuteman High School district will vote at a referendum on September 20 on whether to approve its new school building after officials from Minuteman and other towns determined that the Belmont Town Meeting could not be persuaded to change its “no” vote.

Minuteman needs approval from all 16 towns by November 30 to preserve a $44 million grant from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) to help pay for the $145 million project. Every town except Belmont voted either to approve funding the project or to withdraw from the district to avoid incurring the capital costs levied on member towns. Belmont’s Town Meeting voted against bonding for the project on May 4, and Minuteman officials initially hoped to persuade the town to change its mind after securing an extension from the MSBA (the original deadline was May 27).

Lincoln voted in February to withdraw from the district, but the withdrawal does not take effect until July 2017, so it is still considered a member town for purposes of the September vote. Five other towns have also elected to withdraw.

State law allows the option of a district-wide referendum if the full complement of Town Meeting approvals for a regional school project isn’t achieved. There have been at least three such votes in regional school districts since 1995, all of which resulted in approvals, according to a Minuteman statement.

Asked why Lincoln should approve a project for a district it has decided to leave, Minuteman Superintendent-Director Edward Bouquillon noted that Lincoln students will still be able to enroll as out-of-district students. He also extolled the broader advantages of “having high-quality technical and vocational education” in the area.

“The value of vocational-technical education when it comes to economic development is clear,” he said. “It’s really an opportunity to express their support, and I would ask them to do that.”

The vote will be decided by a simple majority of the 16-town vote total. Polls will be open on Tuesday, Sept. 20 from noon to 8 p.m. The election will be paid for by the Minuteman school district.

 

MSBA gives Minuteman an extension to November 30

mm1The state has given Minuteman High School until November 30 to win approval from Belmont for a new school project after that town voted down a bond authorization earlier this month.

The Minuteman School Committee voted to bond for the project on March 15 and gave member towns 60 days in which to disapprove. Nine of the 10 towns in the Minuteman school district voted at Town Meetings this spring to approve spending a total of $149 million on a new school in Lincoln, with the Massachusetts School Building Committee (MSBA) paying $44 million of that cost if member town’s approvals were achieved in time.

The Belmont Town Meeting voted no on May 4, citing concerns about the school’s size and cost as well as enrollment projection. Minuteman Superintendent-Director Edward Bouquillon attributed the rejection to “a lack of understanding and a lack of information” due in part to Belmont’s political process.

In February, Lincoln decided to withdraw from the Minuteman district to avoid having to help pay for the new school as a member town. Non-member towns can still send students to Minuteman but will pay through a new out-of-district capital fee in addition to the annual tuition fee (both set by the state).

The time extension granted by the MSBA will “allow the district and other key stakeholders an opportunity to further engage Belmont officials in a substantive discussion about the benefits of moving forward with the project,” Bouquillon said in a May 27 statement, adding that he “remains hopeful.”

Ironically, Belmont officials played an instrumental role in getting the project to the point where approval is now within reach. The town pushed hard to get out-of-district communities to pay a share of capital costs and also pushed for changes in the regional agreement that were approved late last year by all 16 district communities. Those changes reconfigured the makeup of the district, led to weighted voting on the Minuteman School Committee, and revised how long-term debt is allocated.

No decision has been made by the Minuteman School Committee on how to proceed next. Members have at least two options: voting again to bond for the project and giving the member communities another 60 days in which to object, or calling a one-day district-wide referendum where the project is decided by the combined vote in favor versus the combined vote in opposition.

Minuteman school building project hits another snag

The Minuteman High School building project hit yet another snag last week when voters in Belmont rejected a bond measure to help fund the new building—even as planning has begun for what to do with the land that will be freed up by the old building’s demolition.

Under the terms of the regional school district agreement, member towns must be unanimous in authorizing debt for the project. The district now includes 10 towns, down from 16 after several including Lincoln voted to withdraw from the district earlier this year to avoid having to pay a member’s share of the capital costs. In any case, the new building will be located on Lincoln land close to the current building, which is just over the Lexington town line.

Belmont, which has a representative town meeting form of government, voted against the bonding measure by a 141-81 margin on May 4. Acton, Bolton, Concord, Dover, Lancaster, Lexington and Stow have already approved the project by wide margins, some unanimously, and the last two towns, Arlington and Needham, voted yes on May 9.

Minuteman Superintendent/Director Ed Bouquillon attributed the Belmont defeat to “a lack of understanding and a lack of information.” He said he had asked selectmen back in 2015 to be part of the discussions but was not invited to make a presentation at the Board of Selectmen or Capital Planning Committee meetings about Minuteman funding.

The town also has a different process in terms of allowing people to speak at Town Meeting, and Bouquillon said he was not allowed to speak there, either. Instead, the town’s representative on the Minuteman School Committee made a presentation that was essentially neutral, though the School Committee member himself was in favor of the project, according to Bouquillon.

“It was a very difficult environment to get information out,” he said. “We did not have any kind of articulate, powerful advocates among elected officials and stakeholders in town government.”

Another factor may have been that Belmont High School was just accepted into the funding pipeline by the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), so voters were facing two possible school projects within a relatively short time span. However, this was also true for Arlington, which passed the Minuteman measure, Bouquillon said.

Minuteman is up against a May 27 deadline to secure funding approval from its member towns or lose a promised grant of about $45 million from the MSBA. Bouquillon said on Wednesday that he planned to write the MSBA and request a 120-day extension “to try to change the hearts and minds of 30 voters” in Belmont (the swing that would have made the difference at Town Meeting). “We’re going to try to do it more person to person and hopefully hold some information sessions in Belmont for Town Meeting members,” he said.

If Minuteman receives the 120-day extension but Belmont again votes down the funding measure at a Special Town Meeting, Bouquillon said he would recommend to the Minuteman School Committee that the the district hold a district-wide referendum, where a simple majority of total voters in the member towns could approve funding. However, getting a revote in Belmont is preferable for several reasons, he said. Among them: the district would have to pay for the referendum, which could cost $100,000; summer is not the best time for a vote like this; and the towns that have already approved funding may be “pretty annoyed,” he said.

“We want to avoid that pathway as an option,” Bouquillon said. “People could campaign against the new building and it could backfire on the whole eight-year process.”

Fate of the current building site

Meanwhile, Minuteman has begun exploring how to make the best use of the 13-plus acres of land in Lexington where the current school sits. The space could be the site of new construction for public or private educational organizations that could partner with the high school. One such candidate is Middlesex Community College (MCC), which recently reached an agreement for Minuteman to serve as a satellite campus where Minuteman students can double-enroll and take MCC classes for college credit.

Thus far, six classes thus far have been approved for qualified Minuteman students, though Bouqillon said he expected this number to grow. Minuteman students will pay $87 per credit—less than half of what other MCC students pay, according to a Minuteman release. The dual-enrollment classes will be taught by Minuteman teachers who have been approved by MCC as members of the its adjunct faculty.

Minuteman has been in talks with other schools including UMass-Lowell and the UMass-Stockbridge School of Agriculture for similar collaborations, Bouquillon said. Public-private partnerships for facilities that would be open to the entire community are also under consideration, he said, adding that he hoped any construction will be funded in full by those partners.

The land belongs to the Minuteman district and any future use must be compatible with its education mission, and he will not recommend that any of it be sold, Bouquillon said. However, “when you think about the location of this property and its potential, to do nothing would not be intelligent,” he said.

Letter to the editor: Minuteman withdrawal ‘unfortunate’

letter

To the editor:

As a result of the recent vote at Special Town Meeting, it is unfortunate Lincoln is leaving the Minuteman High School district. A 260,000-square-foot total-replacement school facility will be built on Lincoln land, without Lincoln as a member town.

While I am disappointed for Lincoln, I am thankful that students in remaining district towns are guaranteed the opportunity to contribute to the success of Minuteman High School in the advancement of computer science, robotics and other program areas.

Sincerely,

Judson B. Reece
50 Wells Road

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Minuteman school district down to 10 towns

mm1By Alice Waugh

Boxborough and Weston voted last week to withdraw from the Minuteman High School district, whittling the final number of member towns from 16 to 10. The other towns that voted to withdraw are Lincoln, which voted on February 23; Carlisle, Sudbury and Wayland.

All 16 towns approved Minuteman’s revised regional agreement, which will take effect on July 1, 2017. As of that date, Lincoln and the other towns that withdrew will no longer have a seat on the Minuteman School Committee, but they are also not liable for debt service on the new school building (except for per-student fees they may pay as out-of-district towns).

“I’m sad to see some towns leave because the access that students have to high-quality career and technical education will be different going forward,” Minuteman Superintendent-Director Ed Bouquillon said. “On the other hand, I’m proud and pleased that after six years of attempting to revise the regional agreement, it’s a new day,” pending final approval from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, he added.

Minuteman is seeing a one-year increase of 22 percent in applications for 2016-17 from the 16 original member towns, Bouquillon said on Monday. The school had projected an increase of 8-9 percent, “which no one at town meetings believed,” he said. Future enrollment projections will depend on how many students are accepted and enrolled as of October 1, 2016, he added.

Some Lincoln residents at the February 23 Special Town Meeting expressed concern that Minuteman could reach its capacity some time after the new building opens. If that happens, applicants from Lincoln and the other towns that recently opted out will no longer have preference in admission over applicants from in-district towns.

Other towns such as Watertown and Everett have expressed interest in joining the Minuteman district, Bouquillon noted at the Special Town Meeting. However, if they did so, it wouldn’t have an immediate impact on overall enrollment because those towns already send students to the school as out-of-district students, he said.

Minuteman also announced on Monday that it had received a $500,000 state grant to launch a new Advanced Manufacturing and Metal Fabrication program. The money will be used to purchase 10 industry-standard machines and 15 ancillary training simulators including five mini mills, four CNC (computer numerical controlled) tool room lathes and one CNC lathe with Y axis.

The school will be ordering and installing equipment and designing the new program over the next several months and hopes to have initial course offerings in the fall. Advanced Manufacturing will be part of the new school’s Engineering, Construction and Trades Academy.

 

Letter to the editor: Minuteman withdrawal ‘outrageously short-sighted’

letter

(Editor’s note: Antia is Lincoln’s representative on the Minuteman School Committee.)

To the editor:

I want to thank the 200 or so people that took the time to come to the Special Town Meeting last Tuesday evening. This was a huge commitment and possibly an imposition, but know that is was appreciated.

That does not necessarily mean I am happy with the results (see “Lincoln withdraws from Minuteman school district,” Feb. 27, 2016). Those of us who were at the meeting know I am concerned the children of Lincoln will soon be shut out of vocational/technical education. With virtually all the newly built voc/tech schools over capacity and enrollment rising at the other local vocational schools, we are going to be hard-pressed to find a seat for our children.

Most of us have heard Barack Obama tout the benefits of vocational/technical education, and some of us heard that in addition to the $45 million that Minuteman will receive from the MSBA for their new school, Gov. Baker has committed a $500,000 grant to the school which will be used to help launch the new advanced manufacturing and metal fabrication program.

This school is going to be a high school showcase for Massachusetts, right here in Lincoln. And in an effort to save approximately $33,000 a year, we voted to withdraw from the school district. I understand $33,000 is a lot of money. I also understand it is 0.09% of Lincoln’s proposed FY17 $35,126,576 budget. I am not alone in finding this to be outrageously short-sighted.

Sincerely,

Sharon Antia
165 S. Great Rd.

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Lincoln withdraws from Minuteman school district

mm1By Alice Waugh

Lincoln became the fourth town to withdraw from the Minuteman High School district with a vote capping two and a half hours of discussion at a Special Town Meeting Tuesday night.

More than 200 people filled Brooks auditorium and part of the lecture hall for the February 23 meeting, where residents were asked to vote on whether to withdraw from the district and whether to approve the district’s new regional agreement. The final vote on withdrawal was a voice vote with roughly two dozen residents voting nay.

As of Wednesday morning, 10 of the 16 towns in the district had voted to approve the revised regional agreement. Carlisle, Sudbury and Wayland voted earlier this month to approve the agreement and withdraw. Boxborough and Weston, both of whom have expressed interest in withdrawing, had Special Town Meetings scheduled for Wednesday night.

Vocational Education Options Working Group (VEOWG) member and Selectman Peter Braun summarized the data that the group gathered about the cost of sending Lincoln students to Minuteman vs. any of three other area vocational-technical schools. Changes to the Minuteman regional agreement would increase Lincoln’s share of costs for a new school building while also reducing the weight of Lincoln’s vote on the Minuteman School Committee, he said.

The FinCom, the Board of Selectmen and the Capital Planning Committee all unanimously recommended that Lincoln withdraw from the Minuteman district.

The bottom line: “It’s less expensive to send Lincoln students [to Minuteman] out of district than as a member, and even less expensive to send them to other nearby schools on an out-of-district basis,” said VEOWG and Finance Committee member Laura Sander, referring to a chart showing comparative costs.

“The Minuteman budget is not trivial to Lincoln,” said FinCom chair Peyton Marshall. Because member towns are responsible for the building debt regardless of how many towns remain in the district or the school’s total enrollment, “a significant financial risk is eliminated by withdrawing,” he added. Furthermore, continued declines in Minuteman’s enrollment (both in-district and out-of-district) are a distinct possibility, Marshall said.

But Minuteman Superintendent/Director Edward Bouquillon said the school’s enrollment has been declining because as an expensive building project loomed, the Minuteman School Committee voted for a smaller school, “and we were tasked with gradually and humanely… reducing the size of the school,” he said.

Although several towns with small enrollments are leaving the district, larger cities and towns such as Watertown and Everett have expressed interest in joining, Bouquillon said. Member towns have priority in slots for their students at Minuteman, and while the school currently has some space for more out-of-district students, “that capacity is not a certainty in the future,” he said.

“Once a physically attractive, modern new building with state-of-the-art equipment and labs opens, enrollment will increase from both member and non-member towns—of that there can be very little doubt,” said Kemon Taschioglou, a former Minuteman School Committee member from Lincoln. “Minuteman will fill to capacity and it will need to impose an enrollment waiting list as most of the high-quality vocational-technical schools in the state do. Demand will exceed supply.”

If there are fewer spaces than applicants for Minuteman, out-of-district applicants are ranked based on recommendations and an interview as well as academic, attendance, and disciplinary record, Bouquillon said.

Taschioglou acknowledged that the town’s costs for sending students to Minuteman as a member town will go up, “and yet I am willing to pay this even more to support and participate in the governance of another excellent town institution,” he said.

Several Minuteman students and alumni also spoke in favor of Lincoln staying in the district. If future students have to travel farther to another technical high school, “the possibility isn’t as readily there,” said Jack Neuhaus. “By removing ourselves from Minuteman, we’re unintentionally giving the message that we value traditional education over vocational-technical education.”

If Lincoln was not a member of the Minuteman district, any vocational school would be welcome to make a presentation to Lincoln School eighth-graders, perhaps at a vocational education night in Lincoln, Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall said.

The Planning Board will require a site plan review because the new school will be built on Lincoln land, but Minuteman can be exempted by state law from many zoning restrictions, “so your expectation as to what the Planning Board can expect to accomplish with that should be appropriately limited, and this decision won’t change anything about that process one way or another,” said Planning Board Chair Margaret Olson.

If the new school decides it needs a dedicated on-site police officer, Lincoln would seek reimbursement for that expense, Braun said.

Earlier articles:

Letter to the editor: Minuteman vote is not about building project or school quality

letter

To the editor,

On February 23, our town will come together to discuss and vote on the future of career and technical (“vo-tech”) education in Lincoln. We will hear reports from the selectman-appointed Vocational Education Options Working Group (VEOWG) and Lincoln’s Minuteman High School School Committee Representative, Sharon Antia. Regular reports from Ms. Antia have appeared in the local press. The work of the VEOWG is available on the Lincoln town website.

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