Citizen approval critical to schools

LYNN – In roughly two months, voters will be asked to support building a new, $84 million Marshall Middle School but Superintendent Catherine Latham says the vote stands for much more than simply one school.”It’s the lineup behind it,” she said. “If a vote for Marshall doesn’t work, nothing else will come. We’re done.”And that could prove extremely damaging for a city that has eight schools over 100 years old and 13 schools over 50 years old. So the question becomes: How do you get people excited about building new schools?Some suggest giving tours.Marshall Principal Richard Cowdell said that can be a Catch-22. While he would love people to experience the grimness of his school firsthand, he said he also doesn’t want to scare parents who are still sending children there.View a photo gallery of aging Marshall Middle School”It’s safe,” he said. “But we need a new school.”Worst of the worstAt a mere 90 years old, Marshall is middle aged for a Lynn school. It is also arguably in the worst shape.The sixth graders toil in basement classrooms that sometimes flood in heavy rains, are spacious but gloomy and sit off dark hallways with low hanging pipes that practically beg students to jump up and grab them.”And it’s the sprinkler system, so it’s not like we can move them,” Cowdell said.A compressor that keeps the ancient sprinkler system alive periodically roars to life, disrupting nearby classrooms, Cowdell said. The system itself is a cast iron relic that looks like 19th-century “high technology” from a Jules Verne novel.Cowdell succinctly put the costs in perspective.”It is so outdated that the cost to upgrade the system would be much more than the 20 percent cost to taxpayers to pay for a new building,” he said. “And it would have to be replaced to keep the building open.”The Marshall project is currently moving through the state’s School Building Authority program, which reimburses communities a portion of the cost of new schools based on need. Lynn will receive 80 percent of the cost of building a new school from the state.Marshall also has a wide number of large cracks in walls on every floor that have been mended and repainted only to reappear, there are bricks that need repointing, crumbling windowsills on windows considered too dangerous to open, a buckled gym floor and a gaping hole in the fourth floor ceiling due to a leak that no one can find.Cowdell said he’s been told numerous times that to properly repair any of the issues is not cost effective given the overall condition of the school.”It’s difficult to get staff and kids motivated in an atmosphere that is not uplifting,” he added. “But the staff and the kids are wonderful at making the best of the situation.”Pickering’s nextLatham and the School Committee are now charged with making that situation sexy enough for voters to support building a new school. And once they figure out how to do that, they will have to do it again for Pickering Middle School. The School Department has filed a Statement of Interest with the MSBA for Pickering, which is the first step in seeking funds to build a new school.Built in 1907, the Conomo Street school is second on the School Department’s wish list. Next would be either Cobbet, the city’s oldest school built in 1874 or Tracy, built in 1898.Why new schools?There are plenty of reasons to build a new school; space, respect, attitude and perhaps the most persuasive: property values.Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy pointed out that even residents that don’t have children will benefit from new schools because with them, property values will go up.”It’s the most important thing to parents when they’re looking for a place to move,” she said.Overcrowding has become an issue at nearly all of the city’s schools. Not only is there no room to “allow for programs that inspire” there isn’t room for kids. The School Committee recently voted to bus kindergartners across town to an early education center in Lynn Tech in order to free up space in three ele