The School Building Committee, which is managing the Pollard Middle School project for the town, is facing a mid-December deadline to decide which of the seven design and location options it is considering will be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority as its preferred choice.
Missing that deadline to advance from the MSBA’s Feasibility Study phase to its Schematic Design phase would very likely delay the MSBA vote on state funding until at least April. This could have a ripple effect on the project calendar and cause the town to miss its goal of holding a Prop. 2½ override election in November 2026 to fund the project’s estimated $300 million-plus cost.
The SBC has been studying the options since late summer and two can be described as clear favorites. Both would construct a Grade 6-8 middle school, either at the “backyard” of the current Pollard site or at a six-acre portion of DeFazio Park in and around the field complex’s parking lot.
All seven options will be open to public comment at a hearing Monday, Nov. 17, at 6:30 p.m. at Pollard.
“I think it’s the sense of this committee, and I would think it’s the sense of the schools … that a grade six through eight and new construction is the way to go,” Richard Creem, the chair of the building committee, said at its Nov. 10 meeting.
“Let’s hear what people say on the 17th. Then that will give us the impetus, I think, to go ahead and start taking things off the table.”
The easiest option to discard is the MSBA-required “base repair” option that would have the current Pollard building undergo a 10-year project, with work done mostly over summer breaks, to bring it up to code — an effort generally agreed to be woefully insufficient and not worth the time and expected cost of $122 to $131 million.
The two options to spend four-plus years on an “addition/renovation” that keeps Pollard at its Harris Avenue-fronting location as either a Grade 7-8 or 6-8 school also lack support. They are estimated to be the most time-consuming and expensive options. They would also require students to endure four or more years of attending school at what would effectively be a construction site.
That leaves two major decisions behind the four new construction options:
- Should the new building be a 6-8 grade school or a 7-8 grade school?
- Should it be located behind the current building or on part of DeFazio, with new fields behind the current Pollard?
The School Committee’s education plan greatly favors a 6-8 school, compatible with the School Committee’s overall school master plan.
Expanding Pollard to a 6-8 school would eventually free up the current sixth-grade center at High Rock School to be retrofitted as an elementary school. It could then be used as swing space if and when the town addresses the need to rebuild the Mitchell School.
School officials estimate this creates $40 million in savings on that future project and also leaves the High Rock School available as a possible sixth elementary school.
The 7-8 configurations are favored by those who support retaining High Rock as a sixth-grade center, which it has been since the 2009-10 school year. That model has been praised at community meetings and School Committee members have stated the stand-alone model has been good for most, but not all students.
There are also arguments that the projected enrollment of 1,335 at a Grade 6-8 school runs counter to educational best practices that suggest smaller is generally better when it comes to enrollments.
Disruptions at DeFazio
The far more contentious issue involves site selection and overcoming the Park & Recreation Commission’s unanimous and seemingly unshakable opposition to the use of DeFazio. Because Park & Rec has legal jurisdiction over the land at DeFazio needed to construct the school, it would need to surrender that jurisdiction for the project to proceed.
Park & Rec has expressed its opposition to surrendering its jurisdiction in both August and September. It has not deviated from those positions in subsequent discussions on the project. There is no mechanism to appeal a refusal to surrender jurisdiction, so Park & Rec’s opposition effectively eliminates DeFazio as a potential site.
The most recent attempt to sway Park & Rec came Nov. 10, when School Superintendent Dan Gutekanst convened a working group that included members of four town boards who have jurisdiction or other means of control over DeFazio — Park & Rec, the School Committee, the Select Board and the Conservation Commission — along with Town Manager Katie King and Stuart Chandler from the School Building Committee.
The goal of the meeting was to see if the boards could “agree in principle on a framework that could allow for construction” at DeFazio. The meeting explored a “possible land swap scenario” and the development of a Memorandum of Agreement to shift jurisdiction.
P&R Commissioners Chris Gerstel and Cindy Chaston, however, were unyielding. They noted that Park & Rec had been willing to agree to a land swap involving DeFazio back in 2016 in anticipation of land being needed for future school construction.
Noting she was on Park & Rec in 2016, Chaston said the 2016 swap “made sense for the schools. It made sense for the Select Board.”
“This one doesn’t make sense to me. It’s a crazy thing for the town to do.” She and Gerstel were also concerned they heard no guarantees that Park & Rec would be made whole.
Chandler reported on the meeting later that night to his SBC colleagues during their meeting.
“I think that Park and Rec legitimately has a concern,” he said, suggesting it was not realistic to expect Park & Rec to relent. Other members of the board would have preferred Park & Rec give more consideration to the overall needs of the town.
“I believe, from our deliberations, that we’ve got two very good solutions,” said Chandler. “We’ve got Pollard and DeFazio and we’ve got two very capable buildings.”
“Everybody’s dancing around it, and somebody’s got to make a decision,” he added.
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