The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

school project*

The school project: a look back since 2012

width=(Editor’s note: the links to articles and letters to the editor were updated on June 1, 2018.)

As a service to readers in advance of the Special Town Meeting on Saturday, June 9, here are links to past Lincoln Squirrel stories about the school project, as well as letters to the editor and some of the documents cited in those stories.

The articles go back to late 2012, shortly after the last town-wide school project vote took place—and also when the Lincoln Squirrel began publication. For earlier school project history, information on educational impacts, and all official documents, see the School Building Committee website.

Details on the June 9 meeting

Charts and slide decks

News articles

2018:

2017:

2016:

2015:

2014:

2013:

2012:

Recent letters to the editor

Letter to the editor: support conservation and option L3

To the editor:

The recent flurry of activity has flooded my inbox with schools-related information and commentary. Committees, individual residents, and town leaders have made notable and at times insightful observations on what is a path forward that will best serve the educational needs of future generations.

All of that is fine. But in the pursuit of a schools plan to carry to the next level of development, we seem to have become mired down in a discussion of “guiding principles” related to “educational programs” and “community.” I would have thought that an underlying value long held by the town—conservation of man-made and natural resources—would have found its way into the dialogue. Instead we dwell on vague notions of “optimizing connections” and “campus feel.”

Conservation has taken many forms in Lincoln. We have protected expanses of beautiful and sensitive landscapes from development. Colonial-era homes and their grounds have been protected and given new purpose; mid-century Modernist homes are being preserved and increasingly purchased by young families; and public buildings like Center School and Bemis Hall have been transformed, not through replacement but rather through carefully crafted renovations.

The Lincoln School campus should not be an exception. Rather than hauling half the existing school to landfills, we should instead be focused on the plans that transform existing valuable structures to meet educational goals. Years of deferred improvements have taken their toll and that has been unfortunate. When we walk though the Smith/Brooks building, we should stop pointing out all the problems—we’ve been doing that for a long time. Instead we should be focused on how an investment of possibly $90+ million can yield a revitalized and humanely scaled school that embraces a central campus green unlike any other public school system in Massachusetts.

I support SBC plan L3. The plan fulfills our town’s need for a quality educational environment while conserving the remarkable campus setting that has served us well for generations.

Sincerely,

Ken Bassett
37 Page Rd., Lincoln

Committees recommend school options L3 and C; selectmen also include L2

The School Committee, School Building Committee and Board of Selectmen recommended that voters approve school project Option L3 or Option C at the June 9 Special Town Meeting, while selectmen also included Option L2.

Options R, L1 and L2 do not provide the hubs for grades 3–8 that educators have deemed crucial for effective and flexible teaching and learning today, although L2 offers two “flex spaces.” Cost estimates put the L-shaped Option L3 at $93.9 million and Option C, the compact design, at $97 million.

More information:

    • Drawings of the six school options along with costs and tax impacts for each
    • A chart comparing the features and costs of the options
    • The Finance Committee’s updated tax impact projections and comparisons to other area towns

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In a paper poll at its meeting on May 30, concepts L3 and C were recommended by all 16 SBC members and liaisons in attendance (plus member Peter Sugar, who submitted a written response due to his planned absence). Five of the 16 additionally voted for concept L2 as a third recommendation, and one member/liaison voted to recommend all five concepts.

There was little discussion of the reasons for members’ choices except to say that they reflected the guiding principles they adopted last fall after receiving input from the public, other town officials and educators. SBC members had the option of including written comments on their ballots, but those comments were not made public.

Selectmen reject two of the concepts

The Board of Selectmen recommended against Option R as not meeting the town’s needs. “The repair-only option does not seem to me to meet the core mission of what we need to accomplish as a town with this school project,” Selectman James Craig said at the board’s May 21 meeting. “I think we’re well beyond just a repair option, and this does not meet our educational values or our environmental values. I just can’t support the expenditure of $49 million to get us to a spot in time where we’re just treading water.”

Selectmen Jennifer Glass and James Dwyer agreed. “There is nil academic value [in the repair-only option]. I don’t think it’s a good use of money because it doesn’t give you the [return on investment] you want,” Dwyer said.

Option L1 “does not, in our judgment, provide sufficient long-term educational, environmental or financial value,” members said in a May 23 statement. “We believe that the remaining school building concepts (L2, L3 and C) are all reasonable and viable plans that will support, to differing degrees, the long-range needs of our school and community.”

Selectmen also strongly supported the Finance Committee’s recommendation to stay within the town’s statutory debt limit and worried about the substantial tax increase that residents will see.

“I worry about how this tax burden is going to change our community—who sticks around and who leaves,” Dwyer said. “Do we become a ‘graduate and evacuate’ like some of our other towns, where they move in for schools that are awesome and then they leave? The community deteriorates and people are not here for the right reasons. They’re not here for Lincoln values; they’re just here to cash in and cash out on the schools.”

The town’s debt stabilization fund may provide some cushioning, and there are some tax relief programs available to qualifying residents, “but we should look to see if there are any other ways to soften what’s going to be a dramatic tax impact, whatever options gets voted on,” Craig said.

“We want to assure the town that the board is mindful of the magnitude of the financial investment the town is considering,” selectmen said in their joint statement. “Each individual will need to consider and answer the questions of personal affordability and up-front cost vs. long-term value.”

Other committees weigh in

“Options R and L1 do not provide value for money,” the School Committee said in a short May 24 statement. “Options L3 and C are critical for providing 21st-century education, and the School Committee is most excited about the educational value from Option C.”

Earlier last month, the Capital Planning Committee also recommended either Option L3 or C, as did the Lincoln School Foundation this week. The Finance Committee stopped short of advocating any particular option, though members recommended against Option FPC (which is no longer on the table) because it would require borrowing more than the town is allowed to under state statute without a special exemption.

Letter to the editor: what is a net zero building?

Editor’s note: This piece by Sue Klem of Lincoln’s Green Energy Committee is a companion to “What Makes a Sustainable School Project?” which she wrote for the School Building Committee website.

To the editor:

Traditional buildings use about 40 percent of the total fossil fuel energy in the U.S. Lincoln has an opportunity to build a low-energy school building. Let’s do it as an important step in decreasing Lincoln’s energy footprint and addressing climate change. The School Building Committee is leading the way!

By definition, a net zero (or zero energy) building produces at least as much renewable energy as it uses in a year. This is accomplished by constructing a highly efficient building enclosure, using high-performance energy-efficient systems and offsetting energy used by the building with solar and other renewable energy sources.

There are already net zero buildings in Lincoln, at least two homes and the new Environmental Learning Center at Drumlin Farm. The recently built Walden Pond Visitor Center on the Lincoln-Concord line is also a net zero building.

“Mass Audubon’s commitment to net zero construction has driven design decisions throughout the project, resulting in a building that works with instead of in opposition to its surrounding environment,” says Renata Pomponi, director of Drumlin Farm. “Beginning with solar shading analysis to determine exactly which existing trees could remain on the site without impacting the PV production, through details like the interior daylighting and materials selection and the attention paid to insulation and weather-stripping installation, sustainability has been a guiding factor. Drumlin Farm staff are thrilled that the end result is a building that not only is cost-effective to operate on our nonprofit budget, but also reflects the very work that we do in educating people about climate science and how their choices help to protect the nature of Massachusetts.”

Green characteristics that the Environmental Learning Center features are:

  • Net positive energy
  • A southern exposure maximizing solar access
  • No fossil fuel use
  • Highly efficient electric heating and cooling
  • LED lighting throughout the building
  • Occupancy sensors and daylight sensors
  • Energy recovery ventilators
  • Visible stormwater management
  • Native plantings
  • Triple-glazed dual low-e windows
  • Daylighting windows
  • A super-insulated and super-airtight building envelope
  • Materials selected with sustainability in mind
  • Low/no VOC [volatile organic compound] products
  • No products with added formaldehyde
  • Low maintenance and durable finishes
  • Workstations located for access to views and operable windows

Drumlin Farm anticipates receiving a Living Building Challenge Net Zero Energy certification. The grand opening is Saturday, June 9 from 1–3 p.m. You are welcome to go over and take a look (after Town Meeting, of course). As always, Drumlin Farm is free to Lincoln residents.

The Walden Pond Visitor Center is another example of a sustainable building. The Green Engineer provides this description: “The building structure is an all-electric, net zero energy consumption building and implements “passive house” principles. The building has no reliance on fossil fuels. In winter, high-performing triple-pane windows and super insulation keep the heat inside. In warmer weather, ample operable windows, ceiling fans and clerestories create natural ventilation and light, reducing the need for air conditioning and artificial lighting.

“A 105-kW photovoltaic solar canopy provides shade over the parking lot and services all the energy needs of the building and state reservation. An electric charging station allows visitors to charge vehicles. The walls and floors of the building are from locally-sourced heat-treated maple, ash and red oak to withstand the New England weather. Framing and sheathing materials are FSC certified. Water-efficient plumbing fixtures and low/no-VOC paints and finishes were used throughout.”

These local buildings can help us realize that buildings now being built (or renovated) could (and should) aim to be super-energy-efficient, eliminate fossil fuel use, and employ renewable energy. In other words, a net zero building! Let’s work with the School Building Committee to create a sustainable school.

Sincerely,

Sue Klem
168 Trapelo Rd.

Letter to the editor: LSF supports options L3 and C

To the editor:

The Lincoln School Foundation urges Lincoln residents to vote for L3 or C at the Special Town Meeting on June 9.

The LSF has a 30-year history of funding innovation at the Lincoln Schools. In that time, we have awarded more than 500 grants worth well over a million dollars. Each grant provided resources not available in the school budget to allow teachers and administrators to do more within our schools. The grants have been funded in large part by thousands of donations from the residents of Lincoln. A commitment to excellence in education and innovative practices is, as these individual donations demonstrate, a collective enterprise that is deeply embedded in the values of this community.

In this moment, on the cusp of a major school building project, Lincoln residents have the opportunity to demonstrate again that we value education. Education has evolved in the last half-century. The traditional model of self-contained classrooms, which was born from the single-room schoolhouses of a century ago and then adapted to provide a work force for factory labor, does not fully allow for the education that our students need for 21st-century life.

Educational research shows that children of today—the adults of tomorrow—need to be collaborators, critical thinkers, and problem solvers. The teachers and administrators at Lincoln School know this and practice this daily.

However, the teaching and learning at Lincoln School is constrained by the outdated structure. Best practices in education insist on flexibility and small groups—arranging and rearranging students throughout the day to allow for project-based learning, differentiation, and meeting each student’s individual needs. Isolated classrooms placed in a row hinder this work.

School building options L3 and C both offer a fundamental reimagining of the interior spaces within Lincoln School. “Hubs” offer extra flexible space to better allow for small groups, collaboration, and effective differentiation. Additionally, the major investment of L3 or C gives us the opportunity during the upcoming design phase to specify features that further educational best practices, such as visually permeable walls and inviting and configurable furniture.

Lincoln has been on the forefront of conservation and environmentalism. Lincoln has been on the forefront of progressive social values and thoughtful affordable housing. And Lincoln can be on the forefront of transformative 21st century education.

The LSF endorses L3 and C design concepts as those that best support the district’s vision for education by providing an environment in which students and teachers can more fully engage with collaborative, deep, and authentic learning practices. Space matters: it can catalyze, facilitate, and nurture innovation.

This is an opportunity for us to come together as a community around a shared value and a vision for the future of education. On June 9, we hope you will join us in selecting an educationally transformative school building project, L3 or C.

Sincerely,

Trustees of the Lincoln School Foundation: DJ Mitchell (chair), Ginger Reiner (treasurer), Gabrielle Berberian, Cathie Bitter, Juliana Delahunty, Lis Herbert, Jen Holleran, Audrey Kalmus, Tareef Kawaf, Lucy Maulsby, Aldis Russell, Tricia Thornton-Wells, and Nick Whitman

Letter to the editor: option C offers the most benefits

To the editor:

I’m voting for C on June 9th and I wanted to share my process of elimination of the other four options using SBC’s taxonomy:

Minimum requirements (R and L1): R is essentially opening the hood and starts at $49 million, but doesn’t even address some basic utility issues. Similarly, L1 at $73 million doesn’t take care of 2030 energy requirements. If we’re taking out a 30-year bond, I can’t imagine we would build something with a known compliance issue and kick the can a few years down the road for other repairs/upgrades. As the name suggests, this the “minimum requirements” option set and they are there more for completeness sake.

Upgrading current model (L2): This may be seen as the fiscally responsible, middle-of-the-road option at $8 million, saving 10–15% over the next set of options that offer tangible educational benefits. Yet, this is essentially succumbing to the Goldilocks fallacy when we need to make a capital decision with a 50-year+ horizon—much longer than the bond term. It’s hard for me to imagine spending this kind of money without some tangible educational upside.

Also, people may think that if we go above this amount, we may not fund other capital investments such as the community center because we hit our debt ceiling defined as 5% of Lincoln property assessments. With the upcoming higher property assessment, this is not the case. We can and should treat community center and other projects independently.

Transforming educational spaces (C and L3): Compared to L3, C offers more educational space with less square footage, as the two-story building doesn’t waste space on long hallways etc.; it’s faster to build (32 months vs. 36); creates room for another ballfield; and the compact footprint minimizes walk times, saves time, and improves interactivity. I am also happy with the aesthetics of C and don’t have any nostalgic tie to the L shape. Given the $3.9 million difference (C at $98.7 million vs. L3 at $93.4 million), I can’t see a good reason to go with L3 over C.

I want to thank SBC for taking the time to compile and thoughtfully communicate a ton of information. It made it much easier for me to converge.

Sincerely,

Fuat Koro
1 Sweet Bay Lane

Letter to the editor: vote for school option L3

Editor’s note: This letter originally appeared in LincolnTalk in response to a comment about the environmental impact of demolition.

To the editor:

As you may or may not know, since last fall, a community of local architects has been meeting on an ad hoc basis and have regularly attended the SBC meetings and their public forums. Over the course of this process, we have tried to share our combined expertise with suggestions to the SBC and their design team to create not only a financially viable project but to do so with a bonafide respect for our Lincoln heritage.

We have a gem of an actual campus for our students, and it is truly unique for a public school setting. It fits with Lincoln’s legacy of preserving land in its natural state, and it is an extraordinary experiential lesson for our children on a daily basis: namely, that this community values our open space to the degree that our buildings quietly inhabit the land rather than the opposite—a condition that is unfortunately so prevalent in our current culture.

For what it’s worth, nearly all of this group of local professionals with worldwide experience favor a version of the L3 scheme—partly because we believe we should first and foremost fulfill the educational mission as best we can, partly because we believe the L3 scheme can be achieved with less wasteful square footage and therefore less cost than as shown, and finally because we think we as a town would be making a terrible mistake in abandoning our unique campus layout.

Most of us also believe that demolishing so much of the existing structures and spending $95 million for an “Anywhere, USA” type school is NOT environmentally responsible. Among our concerns is that doing so will lead to locating parking lots closer to the building such that they (with solar panel arrays above) will become a defining feature of a once beautiful campus. Along these lines, I personally believe the SBC has not had the best advice or has been deaf to suggestions about the many negative site implications engendered by the compact C scheme as shown.

Lastly, I personally believe the SBC is not fully attuned to how many people may balk at a $95 million price tag for the compact scheme when they figure out just how much their taxes will increase. The increase will be large no matter which way we vote, but I think folks should understand that there could be a “less large” alternative with a refined L3 scheme, and the benefit is that L3 both fulfills the educational mission and preserves the campus setting.

Please vote for the L3 scheme on June 9th!

Ken Hurd
21 Lexington Rd., Lincoln

School project updates: construction phasing, Town Meeting child care

A new overview of the six school options (click to enlarge).

Some updates on the June 9 Special Town Meeting on the school project:

A new view of the options

The image at right shows the five design concepts showing their estimated price tags and the incremental educational and physical features of each.

Construction phasing

If one of the “L” concepts is chosen, construction will take place in two 18-month phases. In the first phase, half the children will move into temporary classrooms while renovation occurs in one part of the building,. In the second phase, they will trade with the the other half of the student body while the rest of the building is renovated.
 
If Option C is chosen, only grades 4–8 will be in temporary classrooms while the Brooks portion of the school is worked on, and grades K-3 will remain in Smith. The project will take place over 24 months, with another eight to nine months for demolition of 73,000 square feet and construction of the second smaller gym in the Smith portion.

Understanding hubs

Watch this video of Hanscom Middle School faculty talking about the impact of grade-level hubs (or breakout spaces, as they’re called at Hanscom) and the difference they’ve made for teaching and learning in the building that opened in 2016.

Child care available during meeting

LEAP has generously offered to provide child care to the community on Saturday, June 9 so parents can attend the Special Town Meeting on the school building design vote that begins at 9:30 a.m. The LEAP coverage will be from 9 a.m.–3 p.m. The cost per child is $20, payable in cash on June 9. Children must be at least kindergarten age. Parents need to pack a lunch for their children; LEAP will provide snacks.

Please fill out this online registration form with your child’s name, age, and parent contact information as well as any allergies. LEAP has maximum capacity for 100 children and will fill up on a first-come, first-served basis, so please register in advance. LEAP will publish a schedule of the day’s activities ahead of time.Questions? Email leap0615@gmail.com.

Last public meetings before the vote

  • The last School Building Committee meeting before June 9 will be on Wednesday, May 30 at 7 p.m. in the Hartwell multipurpose room.
  • There will be community forums on Thursday, May 24 at 11 a.m. at The Commons and Friday, June 1 at 8:15 a.m in the Lincoln School story room.

Voter registration

The deadline to register to vote at the Special Town Meeting is Wednesday, May 30. Check your registration status here. Register online or in person in the Town Clerk’s office from 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.

Committees offer guidelines in advance of June 9 school vote

The Finance and Capital Planning Committees made some recommendations about a school project at the last public forum before the June 9 Special Town Meeting vote, but neither one endorsed a specific design option.

The FinCom recommended that the town stay within its state-mandated 5% debt cap, which would limit new borrowing to about $97 million. This eliminates the most expensive school concept—Option FPC at $109 million.

More information:

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At the May 15 forum, chair Jim Hutchinson repeated the other guidelines that members agreed on at their May 3 meeting. Members recommend that the town not wait until construction costs are more favorable, and judged that the estimates for square footage per student and construction cost per square foot re in line with those from other Massachusetts Schools.

Hutchinson also presented updated borrowing impact information and comparisons to neighboring towns (Bedford, Carlisle, Concord, Lexington, Sudbury, Wayland, and Weston), with ranges depending on which school option is chosen and whether the bond interest rate is 4% or 5%. Those figures include:

  • Tax increase — On a home valued at $997,500, taxes would go up by $1,329–$2,983 in the first year.
  • Average tax bill — At $15,185, Lincoln now has the second-highest average single-family fax bill after Weston at $19,380, and it would remain that position. The average bill would climb to $16,300–$18,014.
  • Tax rate — Lincoln currently has the second-lowest tax rate; it would go up to the fourth- or fifth-lowest.
Capital Planning Committee weighs in

Capital Planning Committee Audrey Kalmus presented her group’s recommendations:

  1. The town should consider designs that are easily scalable in case school enrollment rises faster than projected.
  2. To meet its “current basic needs,” the school should have a full kitchen as almost all other schools now do (this would eliminate the $49 million repair-only Option R).
  3. The building should be capable of achieving net-zero energy use (this eliminated Options R and L1).
  4. To “maximize the school’s value for teaching and learning,” it should include the educational enhancements as recommended by the School Committee and administration, such as “hubs” for each grade if possible.

The only options that meet all four of the CapComm criteria are L3 and C.

A group of Lincoln architects presented a proposal to the School Building Committee meeting on May 2 for a revised Option L2 that they said would meet most of the educational objectives of Option L3 (including hubs for grades 3–8) but at a lower cost. “L2 is really a substandard scheme, not well developed like the other schemes,” Ken Hurd, one of the architects, said at the forum.

“The SBC appreciates the efforts of our town design professionals,” SBC Vice Chair Kim Bodnar said this week. “In addition to their memos that have stimulated thinking in the SBC and within the design teams at SMMA and EwingCole, Ken Bassett, Peter Sugar and Doug Adams volunteered to be on our SBC Design Team Subcommittee last summer.  Their engagement has been extensive and appreciated.”

At the SBC’s request, SMMA Architects also presented on May 2 a compact option costing $85 million (about halfway between L2 and L3 in price). However, with that constraint, the plan would not include the auditorium, which best meets the legal requirement for a Town Meeting assembly site within the town’s borders.

The May 13 blog post by the SBC outlines the committee’s reaction to the idea, as well as some of the differences between options L2, L3, and C. Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall noted that the June 9 vote will establish only the building’s footprint and cost limit, so through SMMA’s work in the summer and fall on the chosen concept, “we can design more efficient spaces in the building” and rearrange things internally to some extent.

Town Meeting format

“We’re expecting near-record turnout” on June 9, so registered voters can check in starting at 8:15 a.m. and go into either the auditorium or the Reed Gym. More than 700 people packed into the auditorium and lecture hall for the 2012 school project, and a few had to be turned away at the door due to fire safety concerns. (The vote was 370-321 in favor of the project, or 54%–45%, which did not meet the required two-thirds majority).

The first vote via voting machine will ask which of the six school concepts they prefer, and a second standing vote will ask then to express a preference for one of the two top finishers in vote #1. The winning concept will then go into the schematic design phase in preparation for a bonding vote at a Special Town Meeting on December 1 (which requires a two-thirds majority) and a town election on December 3, which requires a simple majority.

After Selectman Jennifer Glass outlined the procedure for June 9, several resident had questions and suggestions. One wondered what would happen if the town approved a plan that did not meet the town’s 2030 bylaw on energy efficiency; another asked why residents would be voting on both building shape and price rather than just cost.

“We often hear ‘How can you design something without a budget?’ but it’s hard to name an amount of money if you don’t know what you get for it,” School Committee Chair Tim Christenfeld said.

Between the June 9 vote and the Special Town Meeting in December, there will be more forums and surveys as the SBC continues to meet and the architects present details on the building’s design and cost. “The conversation is going to continue,” he added.

Last community forum before school vote is May 15

There’s one more community workshop and two school tours before the milestone vote to decide which school project scheme the town should pursue.

The public forum on the six current concepts will be on Tuesday, May 15 from 7–9:30 p.m. in the Reed Gym. This session will focus mostly on audience Q&A with the School Building Committee (SBC) and other officials, and attendees will also be asked to informally rank the concepts in order of preference.

At the forum, SBC members will walk attendees through the process they used to generate and then narrow down the concepts from 12 at the start to the current six.

Last week, the committee considered two additional school design options. One of them had been in the mix before and one was a concept that the SBC requested from the consulting architects at a set price point of $85 million. However, “after discussion, it was determined that neither one of them brought anything incremental when compared to what we already had,” SBC Chair Chris Fasciano said.

The Board of Selectmen has yet to issue a recommendation on the options, though members are hoping to provide some guidance without being “overly directive,” Selectman Jennifer Glass said at the board’s May 7 meeting. The Finance Committee also debated the matter last week but decided not to recommend any of the options over the others, though they may yet recommend a dollar amount to keep in reserve when the town votes on bonding.

At its May 16 meeting, the SBC will finalize the concepts to be presented on June 9. Members will discuss on May 30 how they would rank the six options and why.

The June 9 Town Meeting will feature two votes: one using the voting machines and the second being a stand-and-count vote. In the first vote, registered voters will be asked to choose one of the six school options and possibly also what factors were most important in their decision. The votes will then be tabulated by machine, and the two options receiving the most votes will be presented for the final standing vote.

The SBC is hosting tours of the new Hanscom Middle School and the Lincoln School on Monday, May 21, where school officials will point out the educational benefits of various design attributes in both buildings. Anyone interested in the Hanscom tour must email Janice Gross at jgross@lincnet.org by noon on Monday, May 14, as all Hanscom Air Force Base visitors must provide in advance their full legal name as shown on their driver’s license and date of birth.

Visitors on May 21 must travel to the base with the group by bus, which will leave the Hartwell lot at 9:30 a.m. and return by noon, with lunch provided in the multipurpose room. A tour of the Lincoln School follows at 12:45 p.m. Anyone who just wants to tour the Lincoln School should email Gross and meet at the Smith office by 12:45 p.m.