LYNNFIELD — The battle lines have been drawn in the town’s push toward final approval of the plan to expand the Huckleberry Hill and Summer Street elementary schools.
A Special Town Meeting to consider a single-article warrant seeking authorization for an appropriation of funds for the project will be held Saturday, Nov. 21 at 1:30 p.m. at Lynnfield High School.
The $17 million proposal calls for the addition of 10 classrooms, along with other improvements and infrastructure to accommodate what is expected to be an unprecedented influx of new students over the next few years. The project, which is not receiving any state funding, will cost taxpayers an average of $205 per year for the next 20 years.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting will be held outside on the football field.
As with the spring and fall town meetings, safety protocols will be enforced, including mandatory face masks and social distancing.
This week, signs from both supporters and opponents started to sprout up on lawns all across town.
Sarah Kelley is a spokesperson for Together We Grow, an advocacy group she says is committed to maintaining the high quality of education and enrichment in Lynnfield’s public schools.
“Our elementary schools are at maximum capacity and analysis proves that class sizes will continue to grow in the coming years,” Kelley said. “The School Building Study Committee has worked for the past two years exploring all options to solve this issue. Their conclusion is that both elementary schools need to be expanded.”
Former Superintendent of Schools Jane Tremblay, the district’s educational liaison, said that, according to projections from the New England School Development Council (NESDC), Huckleberry Hill School and Summer Street School are on pace to hit an “all-time high” in student enrollment in 2024-2025 with a projected 1,030 combined students in both schools, an increase of 145 students from 2020-2021.
Presently, there are 885 elementary school students in both schools, 470 at Huckleberry, and 415 at Summer Street.
Project architect Charles Hay of Tappe Architects said his firm has determined that five classrooms need to be added at each school to bring the total number of classrooms for each grade level to five.
His proposal is to add one-story wings to each school to house the new classrooms. Each school will have improved traffic patterns and additional parking to reduce lines before and after school.
Summer Street will also have a new playground area and new fields. The existing gymnasium at Huckleberry will be expanded to a full-size facility, which, along with new fields, Tappe said will be an “added benefit to the community.”
The plan would allow construction to take place during the school year while school is in session, with minimal disruption to students and staff during the school day. The project is slated to begin as early as the summer of 2021, with construction completed by September of 2022.
“These additions allow Lynnfield to maintain our current class size standards and enable our educators to continue to provide the highest quality education for students preschool through Grade 12,” said Kelley, who has two children in preschool. “These additions also directly benefit our Lynnfield sports teams, troops, and community groups by creating usable town space in the Huckleberry Hill School gymnasium. This project has a little bit of something for everyone no matter what stage of the life cycle they’re in.”
If Article 1 is approved at the Town Meeting, there will be a Special Election on Dec. 8 when voters will be asked to approve a debt exclusion.
The Select Board is supporting the article. Member Phil Crawford said obtaining a “super majority” (two-thirds) vote is never an easy task.
“The last time we had a successful vote was when the town approved MarketStreet back in the mid-to-late 2000s,” he said. “That wasn’t really close as 2,400 people turned out, which was unheard of. We had 360 come out at the fall meeting, so you will need at least that turnout or even more to get to two-thirds. I haven’t heard too much about which way people are leaning, but to get it done, there needs to be a strong push right now as getting that two-thirds threshold can be tough.”
Anne Marie Tobin can be reached at [email protected].
