Despite some dissenting voices, the Pollard School Building Committee voted last night to move forward on designing a new Grade 6-8 middle school with a 750-seat auditorium situated on the Pollard property behind the current Pollard complex. Although there’s still an abundance of work to be done, this vote broadly defines the scope of the project.
The vote came at the end of a more than two-hour summit of the seven town boards that have roles in advancing the Pollard project through various approval and funding steps. The process is expected to culminate in a Proposition 2½ temporary debt exclusion vote in November 2026 on whether to approve the borrowing capacity needed to finance what is expected to be a $300-$336 million project.
The town is proceeding under the Massachusetts School Building Authority process, which makes the town eligible for state reimbursements that may offset 20% to 25% of the total project cost. The town would then pay between $242 million and $271 million.
If voters approve funding and the project adheres to the current timeline, a new 6-8 Pollard could open in 2030 leaving High Rock School available for future use if and when the town decides to build a new elementary school to replace the aged Mitchell School.
The summit provided the SBC with the guidance it needed to settle the four outstanding binary questions that have framed the Pollard discussions since planning began in earnest in early summer:
- Would the project be new construction or an addition/renovation of the existing complex?
- Would the grade configuration be grades 6-8 or the current 7-8 model?
- Would it include an enhanced auditorium for the performing arts?
- Would it be built at the Pollard site or at the adjacent DeFazio Park complex?
The choice of location was dictated by the Park & Recreation Commission’s decision, voted at its regular monthly meeting just prior to the all-board summit, to not surrender its control over DeFazio Park — a decision that was not well received by the SBC.
Park & Recreation had declared in August that it was disinclined to surrender that jurisdiction, a signal it sent multiple times. The new school could not be located at DeFazio without the commission’s blessing.
In response, the School Committee, which favored DeFazio as a site because of its flatter topography and other factors, voted at its meeting last week to offer Park & Recreation a transfer of control of nearly 10 acres at the Pollard site in exchange for the just over six acres of additional space it would need to build at DeFazio. This would have provided more than enough space to replace the three DeFazio facilities used to build the new school.
The DeFazio option included spending $14.8 million on new fields and a playground at the current Pollard site as well as $6.9 million on traffic improvements to Dedham Avenue Those funds, which would have been included in the overall project budget, were not eligible for MSBA reimbursement.
The overall cost estimate for building a grade 6-8 school at DeFazio was $324 million. That figure is higher than the lower-priced “one phase” Pollard option of $300 million but less than the $336 million option to build a new school in two phases at Pollard.
“It looks to me if the cost is either the same or less to build at Pollard, then why wouldn’t you build it at Pollard and not have that major disruption to what is our prime athletic and recreational complex in town,” said Park & Recreation commissioner Cindy Chaston.
Chaston — and her colleagues Chris Gerstel and Michelle Geddes — said she appreciated the School Committee’s offer, but ultimately “can’t come to a conclusion that it would be the best option for Park & Rec to do.”
Geddes stressed concerns about how traffic would be managed at a DeFazio that included both a school and playing fields, and Gerstel cited concerns over possible delays associated with obtaining the necessary state approvals required to execute the land transfer.
“As a taxpayer, a site at Pollard seems a better idea than building at DeFazio and the disruption of the user groups,” Gerstel said. “It’s for the betterment of the whole town to have the site at Pollard and not at DeFazio.”
Board Summit finds consensus
This was the second time in two months the seven boards came together at the Broadmeadow Elementary School for a joint discussion on the best approach for the degraded Pollard facility. This is not a problem that has snuck up on the town, and preliminary planning has long indicated the solution could cost in excess of $300 million.
The work began in earnest in midsummer and boiled down to making the four decisions voted on at the summit, which included the School Committee, Select Board, Finance Committee, School Building Committee, Planning Board, Park & Recreation and the Conservation Commission.
In late 2023, the Massachusetts School Building Authority agreed to invite Needham to participate in its funding assistance program. Town Meeting approved $2.75 million in May 2024 to fund the design, and the town engaged HMFH Architects in May of this year.
HMFH presented the latest iterations of plans last night along with updated cost estimates. The meeting was then opened up to comments from the School Committee, Select Board and Finance Committee.
Both the School Committee and Select Board stated their support for the construction of a new Grade 6-8 school with the enhanced auditorium at the current Pollard site, while the Finance Committee deferred taking a position as it has yet to fully vet the project.
The Pollard site option is actually a choice between a one- or two-phase build. The latter would allow building further away from the MBTA commuter tracks. It would require moving the seventh and eighth graders into the new building a year ahead of the sixth graders, who would remain at High Rock until a sixth-grade wing was constructed during the second phase.
The meeting concluded with the School Building Committee, which voted separately on the four major components. The SBC voted unanimously to support the grade 6-8 option, new construction over an addition/renovation, and a 750-seat auditorium.
Although it voted 6-2 in favor of the Pollard site, it did so only after several members expressed their disappointment that the DeFazio site would not be more fully studied. Those members agreed with the School Committee that DeFazio had certain advantages.
“I have concerns about building on the Pollard site, given the constraints,” said SBC member Bob Dermody, before voting in favor of the Pollard option. “But as a member of the committee I will work as hard as I can to give us the best school on that site for the town.”
His opinion was amplified by his fellow architect on the SBC, Lynne Deninger, who declined to support the Pollard site. “I personally cannot in good conscience vote for the Pollard site,” she said. “I prefer the DeFazio site. I think it’s better suited in every way possible. And I applaud the School Committee for pulling DeFazio out in order to keep us moving forward.”
SBC member Irwin Silverstein joined Deninger in voting for the DeFazio site, but the sharpest criticism came from SBC Chair Richard Creem, even though he voted in favor of the Pollard option.
“I share Lynne’s comments with respect to my profound disappointment that DeFazio has been taken off the table,” he said.
He echoed comments he made at the Sept. 25 summit expressing “hope that all stakeholder boards would move beyond their jurisdictionally charged boundaries and look to the best interests of the town, both in the near term and in the long term.
“Regrettably that really didn’t happen in this case.”
He added his opinion that the DeFazio site “would have been the all-around best solution for the next 50 years — better than either of the two Pollard options — for the town, for Pollard students and for Park & Rec patrons and clients.”
“That said, regulatory and legal impediments are just too great to overcome, and that’s what caused the DeFazio option to be taken off the table.”
The SBC will now work on completing its submission to the MSBA by Dec. 18 so the MSBA can vote on the plan at its February meeting. If the MSBA approves, it will keep the project on track for a Town Meeting vote in October 2026 and the Proop. 2 1/2 vote the following month.
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