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.

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