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

schools

Magic Garden gets ready to welcome Ducklings and Explorers

Magic Garden staff along with two of its founders get ready to open the new rooms. Left to right: assistant director Susan Scalisi, director Lori Leo, founding parents Barbara Low and Mary Jo Haggerty, Little Duckling teachers Karen Puglielli and Michele Landurand, and Little Explorer teachers Linda Pham, and Ligaya Ferguson. Click to enlarge, and see more photos below.

The sunny rooms are gleaming with brand-new toys, books, cribs, and tiny chairs—all ready for little children next month and a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 9 at 3:30 p.m.

Staff from the Magic Garden Children’s Center are busy preparing for the March 1 opening of two new rooms in a satellite location at the First Parish in Lincoln’s parish house on Bedford Road. For the first time, Magic Garden will care for babies age 2–15 months in its Little Ducklings room, as well as adding a Little Explorers room for toddlers age 15–24 months. Until now, the youngest kids at Magic Garden’s main Hartwell facility were 15 months old.

Two longtime teachers from the Hartwell facility—Michele Landurand, a pre-K teacher in the Starburst room for 27 years, and Karen Puglielli, a teacher in the Moonbeam room for 25 years—will staff the new rooms, along with two teacher aides. 

Magic Garden has two rooms of its own in the parish house and will share two other rooms with the church’s education program. The renovations maximize the space with folding and sliding doors, and a wide exterior door was put in place of a window in case of emergency, when teachers will put the infants in one or two wheeled cribs and roll them outside.

One of the shared rooms has a wall-height bulletin board on wheels that can be swung back and forth 180 degrees for use by either set of children. Margit Griffith, the education director at First Parish, will lead Magic Garden’s music class, and there are also plans afoot to involve seniors (“grandfriends”) from the Council on Aging across the street.

Click images below to see larger versions. Photos by Alice Waugh.

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Lincolnites pitching in to help victims of government shutdown

A government employee at the January 10 “Stop the Shutdown” rally in Washington, D.C. (Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Many families in Lincoln are feeling the pinch of the ongoing government shutdown, but town-wide efforts are underway to try to help those who are being affected.

The efforts arose as a result of a rapidly organized community meeting on January 14. At the meeting were representatives of the Lincoln Public Schools, the Council on Aging (COA), the Lincoln Family Association (LFA), Minuteman National Historical Park (MMNHP), and the Lincoln Food Pantry, as well as several other individuals.

Among those affected during the shutdown are 73 Coast Guard families who are housed at Hanscom Air Force Base and all but a few of the 17 employees at MMNHP. (Those in the Air Force and other branches of the military are deemed essential government employees and have not been furloughed, but Coast Guard members, including those who work in Boston and live at Hanscom, are not being paid.) Many people who work for government contractors are also missing their paychecks.

The LFA has set up a government shutdown page on its website where people can find out how to help, or can reach out if they need help themselves. Among the needs that have been identified thus far:

  • Volunteers to stuff already-donated items into kids’ bags for Open Table on Friday, Jan. 18 at the First Parish in Lincoln’s parish house across from Bemis Hall. The bags include healthy food for younger guests of Open Table, which offers weekly community dinner programs and food pantries in Concord and Maynard. The organization will also have a special distribution day for families of unpaid government workers on Saturday, Jan. 19 at 33 Main St. in Maynard.
  • Personal care items including soaps (body, hand, dish, laundry), deodorant, shampoo/conditioner, razors and shaving cream, toothpaste, toilet paper, diapers (all sizes), and wipes. Drop off items in bins at the Lincoln Public Library, the COA, the First Parish, St. Anne’s Church, and the Smith and Brooks school buildings.
  • Donations of nonperishable food at the existing Lincoln food pantry bins in Donelan’s and at St. Joseph’s Church.
  • Cash donations to help families pay for field trips, sports and other activities. Families of some Hanscom Middle School eight-graders may be unable to afford the spring civics/history trip to Gettysburg, Washington, D.C., and Hersey Park, according to teacher Jay Peledge.“I don’t want our kids to be even more impacted than they already are by their military family lifestyle. They already need to move around frequently, learn to adapt to new environments, say goodbye to some friends and work to make new ones. I don’t want them to lose out even more because the sacrifices they already make just aren’t enough in the current political climate,” Peledge said.

Donors may send checks to the new Hanscom Families Support Fund or to the existing Legacy Fund, which serves the same purpose for children at the Lincoln School. Write the name of the fund on the check and mail to Lincoln Public Schools Business Office, 6 Ballfield Rd., Lincoln, MA 01773.

Adam Hodges-LeClaire (left), son of Ruth Hodges and John LeClaire of Trapelo Road, and Donald Hafner gather trash collected at Minute Man National Historical Park (click to enlarge).

Meanwhile, volunteers at MMNHP have already pitched in to collect trash. Last week at the park, a group of historical interpreters in full 18th-century costume (including Lincoln Minute Men Captain Donald Hafner and three other Minute Men) spent a morning collecting and removing about 100 pounds of rubbish from the Battle Road trail along the 1.5 miles from the Hanscom access road to the Brooks Tavern. A few days before, another group did the same along the mile of the Battle Road from the Paul Revere Capture site to the Minute Man Visitor Center.

“As you might imagine, we historical re-enactors are very devoted to passing along the heritage of our nation’s founding, and so for us, the Battle Road is hallowed ground, to be respected and preserved,” Hafner said. Those interested in helping out can email him at hafner@bc.edu.

There are also programs to help furloughed veterans, seniors, Coast Guard members, and others of any age experiencing financial hardship.  For more information on how to donate or to get help, see the government shutdown page on the LFA website or call the COA at 781-259-8811.

Corrections

The original stories and listings have been updated online to reflect these corrections.

 

New Minuteman High School on track for fall 2019 opening

Architect’s rendering of the new Minuteman High School (click to enlarge).

Construction on Minuteman High School in Lincoln is progressing smoothly and the new building will open its doors to students in September 2019.

The new building broke ground in June 2017 after years of effort, as Minuteman had to secure Town Meeting approvals from every town in the Minuteman school district before the project could be bonded. Faced with having to assume a portion of the school construction debt, seven of the 16 towns including Lincoln that sent very few students to Minuteman withdrew from the district. The other towns that withdrew are Belmont, Boxborough, Carlisle, Sudbury, Wayland, and Weston. The project cleared its last hurdle in September 2016 with a district-wide vote.

Before the withdrawal vote, a Lincoln working group determined that it would be cheaper to send Lincoln students to Minuteman or another vocational school as out-of-district students — even with an added capital fee and out-of-district tuition — than to remain in the district and pay a share of the debt. However, Lincoln has benefited from building permit fees of approximately $1 million from Minuteman — money that is being applied as the “free cash” portion of the budget for the Lincoln School project.

Students from Lincoln and other non-member towns are still eligible to enroll at Minuteman or other vocational school, but only if there are spaces available.

The Massachusetts School Building Authority is funding $44 million of the $145 million cost for the school, which is designed for 628 students. A repair-only option would have cost $105 million.

Before work began, Minuteman hired an archeological firm to check for any historical artifacts but didn’t find any. However, excavation uncovered a large rock that probably marked the site of gatherings for several Native American tribes including the Abenaki. Workers planned to remove it with explosives, but officials decided to move it aside temporarily and then install it in a place of honor once work is complete.

“It’s a significant piece of history we wanted to honor and maintain that [shows what] this land and this ground is about,” Director/Superintendent Edward Bouquillon said in this video about the rock. This page on the Minuteman project website has links to more videos, including a 3D virtual tour of the completed building as well as construction updates shot with drones (the most recent one was filmed on November 30).

The current high school building just over the town line in Lexington will be torn down and replaced with athletic fields and parking, which were formerly on the Lincoln portion of the property. The district plans to explore public/private partnerships to develop an athletic complex and other facilities for use by its students and the Minuteman School District members. Lexington has promised funding for synthetic turf so organizations from that town will have somewhat greater access, Bouquillon said. 

Former preschool to be repurposed as L-S Academy

The former White House Preschool next to Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School.

By next fall, Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School will have a new satellite location for students with social and emotional disabilities.

The building at 420 Lincoln Rd., a stone’s throw from the high school, was the home of the White House Preschool until it closed in 2010. It needs to be renovated to meet current building and safety codes. The L-S Regional School District approved up to $350,000 from excess and deficiency funds to do the renovation.

Use of those funds is restricted to “extraordinary circumstances, one-time needs, and large capital assets, and renovation for LS Academy fits these criteria,” said L-S Principal/Superintendent Bella Wong. The move was supported by the Board of Selectmen, Finance Committees, and the capital planning/improvement committees of both towns.

At least five currently known students may be candidates to enroll in L-S Academy who would otherwise be placed in out-of-district programs, for which the regional district currently pays $25,000 to $90,000 per student each year depending on the placement, Wong said. The annual operating cost for L-S Academy is estimated at $245,000 for an anticipated enrollment of five to 10 students, she added.

L-S Academy is for students with social and emotional disabilities; whether they also has other disabilities would not preclude them from consideration for the program, Wong said. The program will be staffed by two new full-time positions (a special education teacher and a clinical counselor), for which current L-S staff members may apply, she said.

This is not the first plan to reuse the White House preschool. In 2016, Wong proposed a new L-S Hub for Innovation in that space and suggested applying to Sudbury’s Community Committee fund for some of the money needed for renovations, as the building is close to Sudbury’s historic district and was also once the site of the Featherland chicken farm. However, “the School Committee did not resolve to pursue that option,” she said. (The committee approved some minor renovations to ensure the house was wind- and watertight and to address some building code concerns and some deteriorating wood elements.)

Today, the Hub for Innovation “continues in concept,” Wong said. “We continue to have a working group of staff who come together to reflect on their work toward supporting innovation. We’ve also brought in outside speakers to support professional development toward this end.” Last year, several student projects that were supported by stipends paid from a Sudbury Foundation grant, she added.

School project passes Town Meeting by 89%–11% margin

A floor plan of the revitalized Lincoln School from early November (click to enlarge).

The $93.9 million school project won the required two-thirds majority vote with ease at a December 1 Special Town Meeting, with the highest-ever attendance for such an event and a civil discussion of the issues.

In the end, the vote wasn’t as close as some had expected—89 percent to 11 percent—and the tone of the meeting remained calm, despite earlier debate that sometimes got heated on LincolnTalk and elsewhere. Town Moderator Sarah Cannon Holden noted at the start that there was “increased tension and anxiety leading up to this morning—we all need to take a deep breath.”

An hour and a half after the floor was opened for questions and comments, there were still a dozen residents lined up at each of two microphones patiently waiting their turn to speak when resident John Mendelson called the question. The standing vote of residents in a packed Brooks auditorium/lecture hall plus hundreds more in the adjoining gym resulted in a vote of 806–100 in favor of the motion to borrow $88.5 million for renovations and new construction at the Lincoln School.

The vote was orderly and counted methodically, unlike the last school project bonding vote in 2012. At that meeting, the usual voice vote was inconclusive and the subsequent standing vote was arguably affected by the fact that the gym overflow space was not available for voters and fire codes prevented a few people from getting back into the auditorium for the final vote.

The tone of comments on Saturday was civil, with no hostility in statements or reactions, though several comments received spontaneous ovations and whoops of approval—notably when resident Ken Mitchell called for “a little more Lincoln walk and little less LincolnTalk.”

One resident asked questions why the town was no longer pursuing state funding to help fund the project. Selectman (and former School Building Committee chair) Jennifer Glass explained (as she did in this letter to the editor in March 2017) that the competition for funds from schools that are in worse shape than Lincoln’s in terms of physical condition or overcrowding had grown so much that it was unlikely the town would get funding before the school deteriorated even further.

“It came to a point where the School Committee felt the risk was starting to become far greater that we would have some kind of incident that would close the school. It was a town decision in 2017 to go on our own,” she said.

But the large tax increase that will be required to pay for the school had many residents worried that some homeowners—even those who support the goals of the school project—would be forced to sell their property, leading to less economic diversity in Lincoln.

“This is not about us vs. them; this is about stewardship of whole town,” said Chris Burns, noting that Lincoln households occupied by seniors are expected to double  while those with young children are expected to drop significantly by 2030.

Resident John Kimball made a motion to change the figures in the main motion so that the total project cost would be no more than $74 million and the borrowing amount would be $68.6 million. “Where are the budget vigilantes in town today? We should honor our history of fiscal responsibility,” he said. “I agree that school is dysfunctional, decrepit and inefficient… but that is not a reason to approve the project which is unreasonable in cost, unfair in its impact and ineffective in improving education.”

“This is what we voted on in June—we were presented with a menu of options and budgets,” responded Kathryn Anagnostakis. “To relitigate this at this point…” But the rest of her comment was drowned out by cheers and applause.

“The amendment doesn’t do enough,” Vincent Cannistraro said, adding that the project “fundamentally scares me… If you have too much shock to your ecosystem at once, the result is disastrous. If this project goes through, we will look a lot less like Lincoln and lot more like Sudbury, where you move as soon as your kid finishes high school. I can give you 100 reasons why this solution won’t work, but you can’t give one example of a town that exposes [itself] to a 15–20 percent tax increase for 30 years for a single project. The children of Lincoln deserve an education second to none. Please vote no for the future of the town.”

Kimball’s amendment was soundly defeated on a voice vote.

Regarding the argument that the project will boost property values, “that’s no reason for finding a school of this magnitude, in my opinion,” said Sharon Antia. “We need a new community center and a DPW. To put all our money in this bucket and then say after the fact we’ll look at how to be a more welcoming community for a diverse population…  I find it hard to believe we’ll work on it afterwards.”

However, as reflected in the final vote, the comments in favor of the project outnumbered those against. Some of those remarks:

  • “Rigorous economic research shows that funding school structures raises home values more than the cost of the project—it pays for itself,” said Ben Shiller, echoing an argument he made in a November 7 letter to the editor.
  • Until recently, schools including Lincoln’s were designed with the idea that students were “vessels to be filled with information given by a teacher at the head of the classroom,” DJ Mitchell said. “But the world we’re preparing them for is vastly different. Information is at their fingertips—there’s no need to cram it all in their heads. Children need to be able to collaborate, think critically, be problem solvers, tinker about, make adjustments and even fail. It’s messy work not always suited to a contained classroom.”
  • Long-time kindergarten teacher Becky Estin (who received a spontaneous standing ovation when she said she had taught at the school for 39 years) said teachers have been involved with the planning process from the start and fully support the project. “Some of us were a little confused why it’s taken so long to repair these buildings… given how great the need is,” she said, citing power outages and odors that necessitated classes being moved. “We deeply, deeply care about our jobs… but we can’t help your children in spaces that don’t allow us to be innovative and creative.”
  • “I believe Ms, Estin could make magical things happen in a closet,” Jal Mehta said. “But to make learning dynamic, interconnected, and flexible, need spaces that are dynamic, interconnected, and flexible.” He urged the town to vigorously explore options for tax relief for those who need it so “we can support both our youngest residents and our oldest.”
  • The net-zero energy efficiency of the new building is crucial, said Alex Chatfield, because global climate change “is no longer a crisis to be faced in future—it’s happening in plain site and happening now… it’s our intergenerational responsibility not just to provide a decent education, but a safe planet to live on.”
  • Liz Wilkinson, a veteran teacher at Concord-Carlisle High School, said that the improved air quality and temperature in the new school building made “a dramatic difference in teaching and learning effectiveness,” and that features such as hubs and learning commons are essential to 21st-century education that calls for “collective, flexible, and project-based learning.”
  • Though the tax hike required by the project is significant, Lincoln’s taxes have actually been relatively low in recent years as the town has not invested enough in its schools and infrastructure, Ginger Reiner said. “What we’re experiencing is just recalibrating our taxes to be more in line with what our [neighboring towns] are,” she said. “We’ve essentially been borrowing against our future selves [and have] artificially suppressed out taxes”—remarks that were met with vigorous applause.

Opinions and debate reach a crescendo as school vote nears

Years of study and planning—along with weeks and months of vigorous debate and opinions in the form of LincolnTalk posts, roadside signs, mailings, and websites—will culminate in votes on funding the Lincoln School project this Saturday, Dec. 1 and Monday, Dec. 3.

Roadside campaign signs saying “Vote Yes: Our Town, Our School, Our Kids” have been distributed around town by the Friends of the Lincoln School Project (FLSP), which is not affiliated with the School Building Committee or other town officials. Other signs and car magnets urging a “yes” vote have been distributed by the Lincoln School Foundation.

Hans Bitter and Bryce Wells are the two official members of the FLSP per legal requirements for a Ballot Question Committee, though about two dozen residents have donated time and/or money, they said in an email to the Lincoln Squirrel. While most of the volunteers have children at the Lincoln School, though most of those kids will have moved onto high school by the time the project is completed, they added.

The organization has spent about $3,000 on the yard signs and mailings, and any leftover cash will be donated to the Lincoln PTO, they said.

“Our focus was to make sure people knew that there was an important vote and to rally those who support the project. The yard signs and the mailing were physical embodiments of that focus, but the outreach was person to person—phone calls, emails, conversations in parking lots, Donelan’s, soccer fields, and more,” Bitter and Wells said. “Our group is also very concerned about the potential financial hardship some of our neighbors will face and so we are exploring other creative options to assist those in need.”

Arguments and information fly

Hundreds of emails about the school project and its impact on taxpayers have been exchanged on LincolnTalk, with passionate arguments both in favor of and against the project. Resident Philip Greenspun, who was a frequent poster until he was put on moderation status by moderators from LincolnTalk earlier this year, created a website called the Lincoln School Improvement Committee, which claims about a dozen members and dissects public documents to argue against the need for the project.

One post on the site argues that “mental gymnastics [are] required to support the Lincoln School Building projects” while another says the project is akin to a religion for which “facts and logic are not persuasive… If we rename the ‘School Building Committee’ the ‘Church of School Building’ and re-title the members as ‘Temple Priests,’ will the whole debate then make sense?”

Dozens of other residents, including Finance Committee member Andy Payne and SBC Vice Chair Kim Bodnar, have written lengthy posts on LincolnTalk and the SBC website blog answering questions and arguing that the project is crucial to the Lincoln School and the town as a whole and cannot be delayed further.

Meanwhile, a working group has been looking at programs employed by other area towns to help soften the impact of major property tax increases on seniors with limited means. If voters approve the school funding, property taxes are expected to rise by 17.2 percent to 19.4 percent, though not all of that in the first year. Determining factors will include the interest rate at the time of actual bonding, and the details of the timing and amounts of bonds as determined by the Finance Committee. The working group consists of Town Administrator Tim Higgins, Selectman Jennifer Glass, FinCom member Gina Halsted, and Carolyn Bottum, director of the Lincoln Council on Aging.

There is but a single question to be voted on at Saturday’s Special Town Meeting and Monday’s ballot vote: whether to appropriate $88.5 million for the project. For the borrowing to go forward, two-thirds of voters must vote “yes” at Town Meeting on Saturday and a simple majority must do the same at the ballot vote on Monday. If either vote fails to meet the threshold, the town can schedule another vote of that type in an attempt to win approval, since the sequence of votes doesn’t matter.

On Monday, polls will be open in the Smith gym from 7:30 a.m.–8 p.m.

Town Meeting details

Officials have posted this web page with links to the documents and slides that will be used at Town Meeting. Direct links are below:

Special Town Meeting slides:

Child care

  • For children under the age of 5, the Lincoln Family Association (LFA) will host a drop-in playgroup event for kids and parents (no drop-offs) in Hartwell Pod A from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. There will be toys and nut-free snacks. The cost per child is $5, payable in cash at the door. Parents will be notified when the vote is about to happens so they can get back to the auditorium or gym in time. Click here to register your child.
  • Registration for child care for children older than 5 at LEAP has closed.

Arrival and seating

  • All Lincoln residents wishing to vote must sign in starting at 8 a.m. outside the Brooks auditorium. You may leave and return after singing in and getting your hand stamped.
  • There will be overflow seating and a video link in the Reed Gym. Residents in the gym may vote when the time comes, but they must go to the auditorium if they wish to speak before the vote.

Order of the meeting

  • The meeting opens at 9 a.m. with presentations by chairs of the School Building, Finance, Capital Planning, and Green Energy Committees. Representatives of the School Committee and the Board of Selectmen will then speak briefly (see links to slides above).
  • Discussion and debate are expected to begin at around 10:30 and could last two hours or more.
  • Anyone in the Reed Gym who wishes to speak must come to one of the microphones in the Brooks Auditorium.
  • Town Moderator Sarah Cannon Holden asks residents to keep comments and questions to no more than two minutes, and to let others have a chance to speak before coming to the microphone a second time.

Voting

  • Before any vote, there will be a 10-minute break to ensure that people are seated and the volunteers who do the counting are in place, after which the doors to the gym and auditorium will close, and no one will be allowed to enter or leave until the counts are completed.
  • At the start of the voting, everyone must be seated, and non-voters will be asked to sit in specific areas of the halls.
  • All voting will be done by a standing count.

Letter to the editor: school design represents Lincoln core values

To the editor:

As engaged community members, we have attended and participated in many of the School Building Committee meetings, town surveys, and open workshops held over the past two years in Lincoln. We invested our time in this process because we understood that a new school is likely the most significant capital project that Lincoln will consider for the next several decades; because we feel the best education for our children is a priority that binds us together as a community; and because we recognized both the potential opportunity and the long-term benefit to the town of a design that would be appropriate, innovative, and sustainable.

We appreciated having a “seat at the table” and that citizen concerns, questions, and differing opinions that came up in meetings over the past two years were acknowledged thoughtfully and diligently considered by the SBC throughout the process. It was a thorough, transparent, and inclusive process. Overall, we feel this was time well spent and has resulted in a design worthy of our children, our teachers, and of Lincoln.

Given the importance of this school to our community and the positive message it will send to our students and teachers, we will be voting YES for the new school building on December 1 and 3. We believe the school design reflects the core values as articulated by the town at the beginning of the process and will provide a superior learning environment.

We are particularly excited that the new school will incorporate a net zero energy design. As we learned and hope you consider, the benefits of the net zero school building to everyone in Lincoln are multiple. The net zero design requires less energy, lowers operating costs, and provides increase building resiliency in a changing climate. Powered by renewable solar energy, the new school will have a reduced carbon footprint, helping Lincoln meet our 2030 energy bylaw. Finally, the overall design will positively impact student performance, enhance learning opportunities, and demonstrate Lincoln’s commitment to educational innovation to our teachers and staff.

We encourage you to consider all these benefits and hope you will join us in voting to support the School Building Committee’s design.

Sincerely,

Sheila Dennis and Tom Henry
28 Weston Rd., Lincoln

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: voting against higher taxes misses the bigger picture

To the editor:

We should all be paying careful attention when we’re being asked to vote for a school that will increase our property tax bills by nearly 20 percent. But paying careful attention means thinking through all the financial consequences, not just the most immediate impacts on our wallets.

I’m certainly concerned about my taxes going up. But I’m also concerned about the longer-term impact that turning down a school project for a second time in six years might have on housing prices in Lincoln. While there’s always room for more thorough financial analysis, some simple observations and arithmetic suggest the financial gains resulting from lower property taxes might quickly be negated by potentially much larger reductions in the value of our homes. Here’s why I worry that a focus only on property taxes could lead us to a bad financial decision:

  • Lincoln’s high home prices mean that small percentage declines in home values compared to what they would otherwise have been—what I’ll refer to as the penalty for not investing in quality schools—could be fairly consequential. For Lincoln’s median home valued at around $1 million, a 2 percent penalty amounts to $20,000, a 5 percent penalty is $50,000 and a 10 percent penalty results in a $100,000 loss of value.
  • It’s the implications of the investment in educational enhancements beyond the “repair only” scenario (i.e., beyond the $49 million option) that we need to focus on when considering the additional property tax costs of the decision about the new school. These enhancements represent only about 50 percent of the increase in the tax bill. Yet, they are what are most likely to be recognized by future home buyers as an indication that Lincoln is serious about investing in its schools—and thus generate the real benefit to property values. For the currently proposed $93.9 million project, the FinCom estimates the median tax bill in the more expensive bonding cost scenario would rise by a little over $2,700 per year; but the educational enhancement component of the cost accounts for only about $1,400 of this amount.
  • In a highly simplified scenario (that is, with no time value of money, no inflation, and no other personal tax considerations), a family living in the median-value home for 10 years would save roughly $14,000 in taxes if Lincoln chose not to fund any educational enhancements (i.e., repair only), and a little over $42,000 in the same scenario if they stayed in their home for 30 years—this is just a straight adding-up of the $1,400 in annual taxes attributed to the educational enhancements.
  • How do the tax savings in this scenario compare with the losses that might occur if the real estate market imposed a penalty of as little as 5 percent on home values for Lincoln’s perceived failure to support its schools? In other words, are you likely to be economically better off if you vote for the more expensive school or not? For the median million-dollar Lincoln home, a penalty of as little as 5 percent (roughly $50,000) would more than offset the expenditures on increased property taxes, even for homeowners who stay in their homes for as long as 30 years. So if you believe a penalty in the 5 percent range is plausible, the answer is yes—homeowners would be economically better off in the long run voting for the more expensive school. If the penalty for not investing in the schools were higher (say, 10 percent) homeowners would be much better off. A homeowner selling his or her house 10 years from now would have paid a little over $14,000 in cumulative taxes for the educational enhancements but would have realized $100,000 less than would otherwise have been the case.
  • The numbers presented above are by design a simplification. They’re actually quite conservative in not taking into account the time value of money when looking at the value of the future tax savings, particularly if the penalty to home values is relatively immediate and long-lasting. My takeaway is that a vote against the current school project could well end up damaging the family finances more in the longer run than it helps. Given Lincoln’s high home values, even relatively small penalties—for example, less than 5 percent—imposed by the real estate market in response to a perception that we have not invested adequately in our schools would quickly negate the value of lower property taxes that Lincoln’s homeowners would enjoy if pursuit of a less expensive option, like “repair only,” leads to the defeat of the school project bonding votes in early December.

How likely is the real estate market to impose a significant “school” penalty if Lincoln doesn’t approve the proposed school building project? Without a doubt we could argue about this for the next 30 years. But looking at real estate appreciation in neighboring towns may provide some perspective. In Lexington, widely recognized for the quality of its educational system, the median home price rose by more than 50 percent between 2008 and 2017, compared with a rise over the same period of less than 10 percent in Lincoln. While this 40 percentage point difference certainly should not be attributed solely to schools, it’s also likely that perceptions about the quality of education in Lexington have had something to do with it. Avoiding a housing price penalty in the range of something like 3–5 percent certainly seems plausible and maybe even likely, in light of the large relative changes in home sale prices we’ve seen between Lexington and Lincoln over the past decade.

Given the risks of even larger potential penalties, I’m more worried about the property value impact of turning down the school than I am about the extra taxes I’ll have to pay. And for those who may need to rely on the town’s tax relief programs or a home equity line of credit to help with their property taxes, I think the same argument holds true—when you finally do sell your home, a vote for the school project reduces the risk that you’ll suffer a significant reduction in its value because young families are less interested in moving to Lincoln.

And last but certainly not least, all this ignores the perhaps more important, and less self-interested, reasons to vote for the school project. Many residents have spoken eloquently to these already.

Sincerely,

Tom Walker
12 Trapelo 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.

Letter to the editor: new school will have many excellent attributes

To the editor:

Our small town has long worked to find agreement on how to best support and configure our K-8 school. Last spring, we selected the L3 option, which sustained the central campus and set a budget of $93.9 million. Since then, wonderful, balanced work has brought to reality a model school and a new community campus about two fields in a central common for Lincoln. Now we can all see its promise. Like all good design, here are the outline of attributes which invite description.

First, the L-shaped scheme of the school unifies the school facility, and the campus plan will be fulfilled when the community center is completed along with new pedestrian links to the east connected to the Reed Gym. At last, a new unity is promised.
Importantly, what was a linkage between two separate buildings Smith and Brooks is now connected—unified, not just linked.

A new central entry allows for security control and a principal portal reached across an east courtyard. Anchoring these necessities just inside the entry is a new communal learning space, library learning center, and school administration. One is drawn together. One is centered, secured, and welcomed. All in a facility which also allows for varying configurations of team and individual learning.

This attribute of individual and group learning characterizes a new method of teaching. The new plan’s order is interwoven into the frame of the renovated building as third- through eighth-grade classrooms have flexible hub spaces which allow for large group spaces, or work spaces for smaller-scale learning groups to pursue learning independently or with supervision. This is all possible due to new fire separation technology, which allows traditional hallways to be reconnected with smoke-activated door security into useful learning hubs as gateways to classrooms. The end of a hallway may now be encircled by classrooms and that circulation space can be enclosed as part of the hub.

So now we have a design which promises not just a new facility, but one specifically formed to support new educational learning configurations, allowing flexible options for instruction while sustaining and renovating the distinctive spaces of the historic Smith and Brooks schools.

Note that the Donaldson auditorium serving our critical town governance and the beautiful multifunction Smith gym enlarge our school over a conventional K-8 facility. We benefit. Here again there is distinction. The design team and the SBC have worked diligently to create a new fabric for our school. It is a model for building renovation, designing a perimeter envelope which will be the first Massachusetts school where the renovation will achieve net-zero energy conservation, with the best of modern glazing, sun shading, interior illumination, sound and air quality control, and acoustic dampening. Now we benefit from a better building.

As we face a world vitalized by the challenge of lifelong learning, all generations of our small community have a great potential at hand, which is to graciously support the new school’s design’s distinctive design attributes. This is a new space and place that supports ideals we’re investing in for the future.

Sincerely,

F. Douglas Adams, AIA
Historic Commission liaison to the School Building Committee

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