Sunday, December 6, 2009

School Committee Meeting on Thursday, December 10th

The next School Committee meeting will be held on Thursday, December 10th beginning at 7:00 pm in the School Committee room (36R Bartlet Street, second floor above the Senior Center). The Bancroft Feasibility Study is scheduled to come up roughly midway through the agenda, around 8:30, but it is almost impossible to project exact times. The meeting agenda can be viewed by copying and pasting this link into your browser:

http://www.aps1.net/Archive.aspx?AMID=36&Type=Recent

It is our goal to vote on an enrollment number for the new Bancroft at this meeting. However, this should not be viewed as a final decision. Whatever enrollment number is voted upon can ultimately be revised pending the results of the ongoing Feasibility Study analysis. So, if the traffic study, geotechnical analysis, site survey, etc show us that the enrollment number we choose will compromise the safety or integrity of the surrounding neighborhood, we will be able to revise the size of the school accordingly.

Options we will consider on Thursday include:

  1. Keeping Bancroft at 500--and alleviating the overcrowding at Shawsheen in other ways, such as through minor redistricting and/or capping enrollment at Shawsheen
  2. Expanding the Bancroft K-5 population to between 600 and 700 students and including the Pre-K at Bancroft as well; closing Shawsheen
  3. Expanding the Bancroft K-5 population to between 600 and 700 students and housing the Pre-K elsewhere (e.g. move it to Sanborn or keep it running at Shawsheen). This would eliminate the K-2 programming at Shawsheen, and potentially eliminate the Pre-K at Shawsheen as well.
We hope to see you at the meeting.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for continuing to ensure that the community is aware of this important process. I appreciate the emphasis on the "steps" in this process. I remain concerned that once a student population is recommended by the school committee, the project will then be destined to make that number feasible on the current site.
    I would only ask that the School Committee remain in firm commitment not to compromise the education of our children, nor the safety or character of our neighborhood during any step of this process. This decision will have impacts far reaching beyond the current economic climate.

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  2. I think there is another option that is missing from this list.

    Expanding the Bancroft K-5 population to 550, plus including the preschool, brings the total population to a palatable 650. This option:

    1) takes advantage of state funding for the preschool
    2) adds 70-80 K-5 students through redistricting
    3) would create less peak-time traffic impact in the Bancroft neighborhood (than the larger options) by staggering some of the drop-off and pick-up times

    I think this would be a practical compromise that takes advantage of state funding for many of the district's space needs. Shawsheen could still be easily closed by adding a portable classroom arrangement to Sanborn (similar to the one currently housing Bancroft 4th graders). Portables would be far cheaper than the proposed modular building and would certainly last long enough to see the town through the current economic conditions and possibly even into the next MSBA-funded project. This solution would also bring the Sanborn K-5 population into line with the rest of the elementary schools in the district.

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