The March 17 article headlined “Voters urged to OK a new school funding application” incorrectly stated that this was the second year in a row that the MSBA had turned down Lincoln’s funding request (it was actually the 2013 and 2015 requests). Also, Eric Harris is a member of the Finance Committee, not the School Committee. the article has been updated to reflect these corrections.
schools
Voters urged to OK a new school funding application
By Alice Waugh
Four town boards have unanimously recommended that residents authorize the town to apply again to the state for funding for a comprehensive school project.
The Board of Selectmen and the Finance, School, and Capital Planning Committees unanimously voted earlier this week to recommend a “yes” vote on Article 28 at Town Meeting on Saturday. A “yes” vote would authorize the town to apply for funding from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) for a comprehensive renovation of the Lincoln School.
In December 2015, the MSBA informed Lincoln officials that the town would not be invited into the funding process for 2016. The application deadline for next year’s funding is in April.
This was the second time that the MSBA has turned down Lincoln’s request. Several years ago, the state approved a $21 million grant for a Lincoln project estimated to cost a total of $49 million, but the project failed to garner the necessary two-thirds majority from residents at Town Meeting in 2012. The town also applied in 2013 but did not get invited into the funding process.
“This is a little bit like [the movie] ‘Groundhog Day’,” School Committee chair Jennifer Glass said at a March 14 Board of Selectmen meeting, noting that residents at Town Meeting a year ago voters overwhelmingly to try for new MSBA funding.
The 2015 funding requests from Massachusetts cities and towns included several from school districts with “very severe needs,” Glass said. “There were a number of districts threatened with overcrowding or loss of accreditation due to conditions.”
In discussions with the MSBA after the latest denial, Glass said the agency “understood we had done a lot of work as a town to build consensus and understand what went wrong in 2012.”
If Article 28 is not approved, residents will vote on Article 29, which authorizes spending a previously appropriated $750,000 on a feasibility study for a school project to be funded entirely by the town. The article notes that a project that meets long-range facilities needs and includes educational enhancements will likely require a minimum town investment of $30 million.
“We fully believe that, to achieve a project to meet our educational goals and is fiscally responsible to the town, we must work with the state,” Glass said.
Concerns over rising costs
However, even if voters pass Article 28, “I’m starting to really worry there’ll be a way in which some people in town will think we’re kicking the can and that people will begin to say, ‘OK, if we don’t get the state money, I’m not going to think about what that means or what we need to do,” said Finance Committee member Eric Harris.
Interest rates and construction costs are rising, “and I think $30 million is probably no longer a good estimate of what it will be a year from now” in terms of the minimum cost to the town, with or without MSBA funding, Harris added. “I don’t know what to do about that, but it worries me a little… two years in Lincoln is a long time,” he said.
It’s also possible that MSBA money will never be forthcoming. “Some of us think the chances of getting state money are about as good as the chances of John Kasich getting the nomination—it’s possible but not likely,” Harris said. “I worry we’re piling up enormous expenses that taxpayers have never really had to confront before… is there a backup plan?”
Officials cautiously optimistic
Others were more optimistic about the chances of getting MSBA money. “I believe that tenacity and commitment with the state can mean something. I think we’ve learned a lot and cleaned up our game,” Eckhouse said.
Selectman Peter Braun echoed that sentiment. “I think at the beginning [of recent discussions with the MSBA], we were concerned that maybe that Lincoln is sort of on the blacklist, but now I think the opposite seemed to be true,” he said. “The ears were wide open and the eyes were wide open.”
The MSBA has been “very open to our requests for conversation,” Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall said. “I think all along have shown that they’re open to accepting Lincoln into the process.”
After Lincoln was turned down in December, MSBA program director Diane Sullivan indicated that this round of funding went to meet the needs of “extremely needy schools this year,” McFall said.
“This may pave some opening way in the coming year for schools that might be at our level of need. [Sullivan] expressed that they understood the [Lincoln] facility’s needs and have an assumption that the needs are the same and probably worse given that time has passed and we we have not addressed them, and they highly encouraged us to reapply,” McFall said.
School officials noted that there are no building problems they know of that must be immediately addressed, and that the town has funded expenditures for crucial repair needs as they came up in recent years.
“If something should arise that would affect the safety or operation of the school, we would ask, even if it had to be reversed later” by new construction, Glass said.
Letter to the editor: Special-ed may not ‘make the cut’ at future Minuteman
To the editor:
At the Special Town Meeting, Minuteman high School’s Dr. Ed Bouquillon presented a slide I initially thought was disingenuous and absurd. The slide showed Minuteman’s costs decreasing while costs at other voc/tec schools are rising. I later realized it may have been the most insightful slide presented that night.
We saw at the meeting that all three new vocational-technical (Chapter 74) schools in Massachusetts were undersubscribed before new construction and now have waiting lists. If the trend continues, and given this data on neighboring schools along with Gov. Baker’s commitment to vocational education, the new Minuteman school will soon be at capacity.
The new Minuteman High School is being built for 628 students, a significant decrease from the present number of 800. State regulation requires Chapter 74 schools to accept students based on a five-point evaluation process, with “in-district” students being given priority. Legally, schools cannot deny acceptance based on the student having an Individual Education Plan (IEP). However, given the smaller school size coupled with the increased demand, it is safe to say a large percentage of students with IEPs will be no longer make the cut. This is significant because as also noted at the meeting, Minuteman’s current student population includes 47 percent students with an IEP.
The decreasing percentage of students at Minuteman with IEPs will result in lower costs. This will start an interesting feedback loop: with a greater number of high-achieving students attending the school, more higher-achieving students will be attracted to the school, again reducing the number of students with special needs. Students with IEPs will either stay in their comprehensive high school or go to other Chapter 74 schools, increasing their costs while the top students are drawn to Minuteman.
It appears that the mid-2020s end game is Minuteman becoming an elite vocational-technical school focused on hands-on STEM education, attracting the top students while other voc-tech schools pick up the education and costs of students with a higher level of need—students who no longer make the cut at Minuteman. Lincoln students who have in the past benefited the most from attending Minuteman may no longer be eligible.
This brings us full circle to Dr. Bouquillon’s slide showing reduced costs at Minuteman and increasing costs at surrounding voc/tec schools. This is simple game theory (gentrification of vocational-technical education). How disappointing that no one, not even Minuteman, mentioned this likely outcome at the meeting. We in Lincoln will soon be left hosting an elite vocational-technical high school featuring hands-on STEM education and our children who traditionally had the most gain from attending Minuteman will not be able to participate.
Sincerely,
Bob Antia
165 South 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.
Letter to the editor: Minuteman withdrawal ‘unfortunate’
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
By 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’
(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
By 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:
- Minuteman panel approves new regional agreement; Lincoln deal TBD
- Key votes on Minuteman slated for Monday night
- CapComm wrestles with Minuteman options
- A breakthrough and a hiccup for Minuteman
- Heated discussion over Lincoln and Minuteman
- Minuteman school project in a political and financial tangle
- Minuteman gets state funding for new school, now needs towns’ approval
Letter to the editor: Minuteman vote is not about building project or school quality
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.
Letter to the editor: FinCom supports Minuteman withdrawal
To the editor:
At Special Town Meeting on Tuesday night, Lincoln will reconsider the nature of our continued involvement in the Minuteman school district. The Finance Committee encourages voters of the town to attend the meeting and consider this important question.
Minuteman has served several generations of our students admirably, providing an excellent vocational education for six Lincoln students, on average, over the last decade. The question in front of the town is not about eliminating that educational opportunity but is instead about the costs and risks of remaining a member town in the school district that guarantees and governs Minuteman.
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Residents learn about voc-tech options at forum
By Alice Waugh
At least two area vocational high schools offer excellent academic and technical programs and could be a viable alternative for students if Lincoln withdraws from the Minuteman High School district, members of the Vocational Education Options Working Group (VEOWG) said at a public forum on Feb. 11.
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