SWAMPSCOTT — Ideas and suggestions residents offer during two meetings this week will help shape how local students are educated for decades to come, School Committee members said Monday.
New school idea exchange meetings are scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 9, 6-8 p.m. in the high school cafeteria and Saturday, Jan. 11 in the cafeteria from 9-11 a.m. Refreshments will be provided at both meetings.
Committee member and School Building Committee Chairwoman Suzanne Wright said the meetings kick off a nearly year-long process aimed at identifying school district space needs and crafting a plan to meet them.
The Thursday and Saturday meetings and future ones planned are brainstorming sessions where a broad cross section of town residents, including students, parents and seniors, are invited to offer ideas, said Wright and committee member Carin Marshall.
“This is one of the biggest decisions this town is going to make in a generation,” said Marshall.
Swampscott is entering its third year in the school space planning process. A visit to town elementary schools in 2017 by state school building officials concluded the schools do not provide adequate space or student services and recommended the school district submit statements of interest to replace Hadley, Clarke, and Stanley schools.
That recommendation translated into four proposed options for addressing space concerns: Renovate or rebuild Hadley as a kindergarten through fourth grade school; build a new kindergarten through fourth grade school; build a new third through fifth grade school, or build a new school with sufficient space for half of the town’s kindergarten through fifth grade enrollment.
The timeline posted on the Building Committee’s website proposes narrowing down the option selection by this fall and refining the selected option’s design early next year with important state and town votes on the project scheduled in mid 2021.
The Building Committee last August selected Philadelphia-based Hill International, Inc. to be school project manager and selected Lavallee Brensinger Architects in December to be the design team.
School Committee member Amy O’Connor praised Wright’s leadership on the Building Committee and said Wright’s 20 fellow members’ varied backgrounds and experience underscore the commitment to meeting school space needs.
But O’Connor said the experts can’t do their jobs until they hear residents’ concerns and priorities.
“It’s so important for everyone’s voice to be heard,” she said.
