News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.
By Alice Waugh
In response to residents’ requests at a multiboard meeting to discuss school renovations, officials made a last-minute change in the Town Meeting agenda so the School Committee could ask for money to find out what exclusively town-funded school renovations might cost.
The Lincoln-Sudbury Regional District School Committee will hold its next meeting in the Hartwell multipurpose room meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 28 at 7:30p.m. The agenda can be found here.
By Alice Waugh
School will start next fall after Labor Day and end by June 24 if the School Committee votes in favor of the proposed calendar at its January 23 meeting.
Partly due to unhappiness in some quarters over how late the 2012-13 school year ran, the committee surveyed parents about their preferences in regard to when the school year would start and whether to have no school on Rosh Hashanah, Good Friday, and a day set aside for parent/teacher conferences.
Fifty-nine percent of the 363 survey respondents preferred school to start after Labor Day, according to a letter to parents from Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall.
Thirty percent of parents and faculty who responded said they thought school should not be in session on the religious holidays. If school were held on those days, McFall said in her letter that the school would have to hire 12 to 19 substitutes to compensate for staff who were absent as one or more of their five paid personal days. “Finding this many substitutes on a given day would compromise instruction and place a high logistical burden on the district,” she wrote.
If the calendar is approved, school will start on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2014 and end on June 24, 2015 if all five snow days are used.
Classroom heating system malfunctionsFollowing is an email sent to Lincoln School parents on Thursday morning, Jan. 9 by Mary Sterling, Assistant Superintendent for the Lincoln Public Schools.
“I am contacting families of Lincoln School students to let you know about a minor incident that has been resolved. We experienced a malfunction with the heating system in Cheri Wing-Jones’s second grade classroom this morning. This caused some smoke in the heating unit. The system was shut down, the class was cleared immediately and the building was evacuated. Students and staff followed all fire drill procedures. The fire department responded quickly and determined that the building was fully safe for occupancy. There remains a slight odor in Cheri’s classroom and we have decided to relocate them to the library for the day. We expect the classroom to be fully functional tomorrow. All students are responding well. We will continue to monitor them throughout the day. Please contact Steve McKenna or Sharon Hobbs if you have any questions or concerns.”
Codman Community Farms is now selling six-month shares in its meat CSA (community-supported agriculture) program. From January to June, those who pay who pay $600 will get 10 pounds per month of Codman-raised grass-fed beef and naturally fed pork packed for you each month. Sign up on the Codman Community Farms website or call 781-259-0456.
Visitors can also buy a 10-pound bag of mixed cuts of Codman beef for $120. Limited quantities available; visit the farm office from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays and purchase from Barbara Rhines or Eric Robichaud.
Are you looking for a place to hold a large meeting? Do you want to have a party but your space is too small? Consider renting Bemis Hall, which has a 2,000-square-foot space with a stage and piano that’s appropriate for lectures, concerts, performances, private receptions and parties, business functions, memorial services, and recitals. The hall available for rental weekday evenings after 5 p.m., Saturday all day, and Sunday after noon.
The upstairs hall has 129 metal folding chairs without arms, 14 white stackable chairs with arms, two 5-foot tables, seven 6-foot tables, and six 8-foot tables for use by renters at no additional charge. In addition, renters are welcome to use the hall’s audiovisual system, including speakers, microphones, projector, computer, and Blu-Ray player.
For information, availability and rental application, go to the Bemis Hall page on the town website (www.lincolntown.org –> Community Services –> Facilities). Questions? Contact Bemis Hall coordinator Barbara Low 781-259-8341 or barbara_low@hotmail.com.
By Alice Waugh
As they mull several options for the 2014-15 academic calendar, school officials are asking parents about whether or not to start school before Labor Day and whether to have school on certain religious holidays.
[Read more…] about Parents surveyed on 2014-15 school calendar
By Alice Waugh
Lincoln will not be eligible for any state funding for a school building project in the near future, according to a letter received by school officials on December 6.
[Read more…] about State says no to Lincoln’s school building application
The School Committee will discuss options for the 2014-15 school calendar on Thursday, Dec. 5 in the Hartwell Multipurpose Room. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. and discussion of the calendar is slated to begin at approximately 7:55 p.m. (see complete agenda).
The committee will also discuss next steps for the school building project starting at approximately 8:40 p.m.
The 2012-13 school year ended later than usual because of several snow days but also because the schedule included days off for parent conferences and religious holidays. Among the options under consideration (click to download a PDF) are taking fewer of those days off, and/or starting the school year some time before Labor Day.
School Committee chair Jennifer Glass said there will be at least one more calendar discussion after tonight before a final decision is made. Public input is welcome either during the public comments period at the start of the meeting, or via email to schoolroom@lincnet.org.
As reported earlier today in the Squirrel, Lincoln’s statement of interest (SOI)—the first step in the process for getting state funding for a school building project from the Massachusetts School Building Authority—is still under review. The next MSBA board meeting at which it could make a decision is on January 29, 2014, but MSBA press secretary tells the Squirrel that the authority expects that letters will go out in early December notifying school districts whose SOIs will not be acted on this year.
“If our staff decides not to invite a district in, the district would then have to resubmit its SOI for consideration in 2014. The submission period for 2014 SOIs runs from January 10 to April 11, 2014,” Collins said. Resubmitting an SOI online is not labor-intensive, but districts would still have to get local approval from school and/or town officials, he said.
By Alice Waugh
After 17 meetings spanning six months, the School Building Advisory Committee had concluded that the school really needs everything that was outlined in Lincoln’s earlier request to the state—but that those needs can be met with an L-shaped building.
[Read more…] about Group concludes that school needs everything in building plan
By Alice Waugh
(Editor’s note: this story has been corrected to include a link to the SBAC’s final report, which previously was available only in draft form.)
The School Building Advisory Committee (SBAC) will present its final report to the School Committee tonight—a report that says Lincoln should pursue state funding for a modified “L-shaped” building and renovation project rather than a “repair only” pathway.
The School Committee meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the Hartwell Multipurpose Room with a continuation of the FY15 preliminary budget presentation. The SBAC is second on the agenda and is expected to begin around 7:45 p.m. There will be time for public questions and comments.
The SBAC was formed to discuss alternatives to the school project that failed to win the required two-thirds majority at a Special Town Meeting a year ago. Under that plan, the state would have provide $21 million for a $49 million project. Some residents subsequently called for a modified design in which the building would be L-shaped, or a more modest and inexpensive repair-only plan.
The report can be viewed and downloaded here. Among its discussion points:
The report examines two hypothetical pathways for a school project—one that assumes MSBA funding and one without such funding—though it did not go into specific plans or cost estimates for either route.
“Although the Committee’s members began their work with very different ideas about what the school buildings needed, they, after weeks of work and deliberations, reached a consensus on what the schools require. These needs are significant and expensive,” the report says. “Thus, MSBA funding is essential for the School Committee being able to implement its comprehensive plan for school facility improvements and repairs that will support educational enhancement at the Lincoln School.”
Lincoln is currently awaiting action on its latest statement of interest (SOI), the first step in applying for a grant from the MSBA. The MSBA’s board of directors is meeting today, though the posted agenda does not include Lincoln.
In an FAQ page on its website, the MSBA explains that SOIs are not considered on a first-come, first-served basis, but rather on several factors, including the “extent and urgency” of a school’s problems relative to those described in other SOIs. More than 200 schools submitted SOIs to the MSBA for consideration in fiscal 2013.
If a renewed offer of MSBA funding doesn’t materialize, “the town will be placed in a difficult position because it will not be able to address the legitimate needs of the schools in a comprehensive manner,” the SBAC report says. “What the town would be willing to pay for under these circumstances is unclear. However, what is clear is that the Town would have to do some deep soul-searching about how much it values the education of its children supported by appropriate facilities and the nexus between a high quality school system and property values.”
The SBAC explored various “repair-only” scenarios under the assumption that this approach would be less expensive than a full-fledged renovation and construction project. However, members found that “any significant repair effort would likely trigger major [building] code requirements and force very significant expenditures. A project designed as a $6 million repair could turn quickly into a repair and code compliance project easily costing $12-$14 million. A project designed to avoid triggering codes would likely not be sufficiently large in scope so as to reasonably guarantee successful and continued facility operation over the mid/long term. It would also present an increased risk of multiple emergency-type repairs,” the report says.
Another reason the SBAC rejected a repair-only pathway is that “such a project would have limited, if any, educational or security benefits.” Without MSBA funding, critical features of the previous plan would have to be eliminated as too costly, including “much-needed” cafeterias and flexible learning spaces as well as a link to the Reed Gym; improvement to the second- and third-grade space; special-needs improvements; improved lighting, air quality and acoustics; and a solution to the ongoing problem of Smith boiler room flooding.
The SBAC looked at the possibility of having a community center tied in some way to a school project but concluded that the town isn’t far enough along in discussions about that idea.
“The committee is concerned about the needs of the schools not being addressed by the town until the town decides what, if anything, it wants to do about a community center. In the view of the committee, this places the proverbial cart before the proverbial horse. The needs of the schools are real; they need to be addressed now, not at some undetermined point in the future,” the report says.
Members of the SBAC are Doug Adams, Ken Bassett, Owen Beenhouwer, Vincent Cannistraro, Tim Christenfeld, Hathaway Russell, Steven P. Perlmutter (chair), Maggy Pietropaolo, Peter Sugar and Gary Taylor.