Plans for a new Zervas Elementary School — expanded by 50% — are accelerating, now queued ahead of Cabot. Perhaps this is because the deliberate pace of the MSBA’s process for Cabot (which will be partially subsidized with MSBA funds) allows the swing space at Carr to be used for Zervas students during the Zervas project (which is not MSBA-funded) without delaying the Cabot project.
The consultants on the Zervas project have set up a public website with presentations of sample plans and the agendas and minutes of meetings of the Zervas School Building Committee/Design Review Committee. ZSBC/DRC meetings are open to the public and allow public comment. The next one (tomorrow night: June 26, 6PM at the Ed Center) will review the results of the feasibility study and consider a vote to move forward from the chosen preliminary concept plan to schematic design.
The Newton Highlands Neighborhood Area Council is conducting a survey to gather community input. This week’s TAB has two op-ed columns on Zervas:
- NHNAC member Steve Feinstein writes about the project and the NHNAC survey. He says that early results of the survey show “dramatic differences between how the community and the city want to solve school overcrowding.” He also notes that, with no MSBA funding, the Zervas project will cost Newton taxpayers more, on a per-student basis, than any other Newton school, including Newton North HS.
- Six citizens with long-time dedication to transportation issues in Newton write (not online yet) about their concerns regarding traffic, children’s health, and safety. They advocate for removing the planned on-site drop-off loop, waiting for the completion of a traffic study, incorporating a transportation plan with special attention to pedestrian safe routes, and analyzing alternatives that could reduce the number of vehicles around the school.
On Monday, the BoA Finance Committee approved funding to acquire three homes abutting Zervas on Beacon Street to expand the site. In early September, the Aldermen will review and vote on the schematic design and cost estimates. It looks like an interesting summer in Newton!
Bruce is right — at one point Cabot was to happen right after Angier, with Zervas to follow. But Cabot is an MSBA – (Mass School Building Assistance program) supported project and has a much longer planning timeline as a result. We were recently pushed out even longer by the MSBA — they told us that our submissions were completely in order but they needed more time to review their backlog of other projects which would slow Cabot.
In the meantime Zervas, funded entirely by the City of Newton and covered by the 2013 override, follows a much streamlined planning process.
The result of these two circumstances is that between the time that Angier construction was to finish and Cabot construction is to start, there was almost enough time to squeeze Zervas into Carr. We realized that if the completion date for Angier could be moved from February 2016 back to December 2015, Zervas would cleanly fit, Cabot would still start on the MSBA-dictated timeline, Carr would not sit vacant for 1-1/2 years, and we would no longer need a costly second swing space to keep Zervas and Cabot on track.
JLA (our owner’s project manager) and WT Rich (Angier construction manager, essentially our general contractor) determined that Angier could indeed move up, so we now can use our swing space with maximal efficiency.
On another note, the vote coming before the Zervas School Building Committee tomorrow night is to endorse the educational program, the school size including classroom count, the shape of the building, its orientation and general position onsite, and the intent to expand the current site with the Beacon Street properties. Tomorrow we hope to give the architects a nod to start focusing more intensely on building planning.
Although planwork being discussed tomorrow night will show thinking around traffic and safety-related options onsite, these are not being endorsed by our vote tomorrow. These topics remain the subject of ongoing, extremely active discussion at recent meetings and they will continue to evolve. To this point, a review of the Angier planning documents reveals that much site planning work went on after the “Preferred Schematic” Phase, which is the Angier MSBA milestone analogous to where we are now at Zervas.
Steve, good to know that traffic will be addressed in a more comprehensive way. Still the drop-off loop has been a big part of the discussion so far, even bringing in an unidentified traffic engineer for consultation. It would seem that the size, shape, and orientation of the building are all influenced by roadways and access points, and the bid to acquire neighboring lots, according to the David Finney, is driven mainly by parking and traffic flow, not the educational mission. Would the building footprint remain exactly the same without the drop off loop? Why would we put forth a “preferred schematic” with a feature that should be ruled out based our experiences at other Newton elementary schools?
Out of curiosity – how quickly does the Eminent Domain process work? According to the various tab articles it doesn’t seem like the city is in communication with the homeowners. I know it’s perfectly legal but it doesn’t seem *right*.
Good luck to these three families finding something habitable in their neighbourhood for the price the assessor is giving them.
Anyone know who Frank Zervas was? Will the new school will have his name?
@Joyce – According to the Tab, the three properties together are assessed at $1.6M but the finance committee just allocated $2.7M to buy the properties. So it does appear that the city is intending to pay substantially above the assessed value of the houses.
Hoss, Frank Zervas was the principal of the Beethoven School. I believe he died in a skiing accident in New Hampshire (that may be incorrect). His wife, Cynthia just passed away on May 1st of this year. His reputation of being a wonderful principal stilled filled the hallways, when my children attended the school years later.
Yes, Frank Zervas was the very highly regarded principal of Beethoven Avenue School until his death in 1977, due I think to a kerosene heater in his cabin in New Hampshire. His photo is displayed in the school library. His wife, Cynthia, maintained a close relationship with the school until her death in May.
The new school certainly should have his name. But I wonder if Newton might continue its tradition of retaining school names as schools consolidate (e.g., Mason-Rice, Memorial-Spaulding, and maybe also Lincoln-Eliot?), and thus call the new building Zervas-Hyde-Emerson!
…and Bowen-Hyde and Countryside-Hyde-Emerson and Mason-Rice-Hyde
Chris Neal, a community representative on the ZSBC, has sent out the updated “preferred schematic” that the committee will vote on tonight, along with the Executive Summary of the Feasibility Study. Chris notes: “The main difference…is that the “L” shape has been flipped. Main reason for this/benefits it brings is less pedestrian/car drop-off crossing paths.” He expects there will be some discussion of whether the exit from the on-site drop-off loop should be on Beethoven or Beacon. He recommends that anyone with feedback for the ZSBC send it via the project website before the 6PM meeting tonight. You can also use that link to sign up for email updates from the project team.
Also Public Comment is welcome at the meeting tonight. It is not interactive so input will be noted by project planners but not responded to as part of a dialogue.
There are a few other attributes to the flipped plan that I think are very strong: There is no longer confusion about two front entrances which many struggled with on the last layout. The building is pulled back from Beacon and has a clear main entrance that faces both Beacon and Beethoven. This placement allows for a single large front gathering space, cleanly accessible from both Beacon and Beethoven. Conversations about the amount of parking and its placement, and the size, placement, and access to a drop-off loop are very active.
Bruce, I like the idea of hyphenating school names. 😉
Steve, there’s definite improvement in the latest schematic — including the car-free pedestrian paths and a friendly welcoming area — but I still hope the committee questions the existence of the drop-off loop. Despite our experiences at other Newton elementaries, it still sounds like there is an assumption that cars must be brought on city property, based on advice from a “city official”? With on the efficiency of the current layout, it’s probably the parking that’s driving the acquisitions anyway, independent of the drop-off loop.
I’m also curious… the charts mention a blue zone… in addition to a drop-off loop? Why are both necessary and how would that function?
Adam, the on-site drop-off loop is currently specified to hold only 20 cars at a time. Sure, there will be throughput/turnover through that loop, but the current school already has 40 cars parked on the school side of Beethoven between Puritan and Beacon (plus more on Puritan and further south on Beethoven).
I haven’t seen a traffic study or a count of who arrives by car now, but if we assume that one-third of students arrive by car now, and all additional students arrive by car, then the traffic will increase maybe 2 to 2.5 times from today’s level. Of course many of those additional students will come by bus, so that estimate for increased traffic is high. Even so, I don’t think a drop-off loop for 20 cars at a time could refresh fast enough to handle any increased car traffic during drop-off without a long Blue Zone on Beethoven in addition. (It gets worse at pick-up time, when cars stop and wait for kids to arrive instead off cruising through and dropping off.) Even after exiting the Blue Zone and/or on-site drop-off loop, the traffic will have to make its way across or into Beacon Street traffic.
It’s unclear to me how the drop-off loop would function or how it would help the situation. If it’s intended as short-term parking, would people be on the prowl for a space? That makes traffic worse. Do they drive around the loop until they find a place to stop? Or just double park and let out their kid? Or pull in and out in tight spaces around children? If it’s intended to be some sort of blue zone (in addition to the one on the street?) it assumes full cooperation of the parents, moving in synchronized batches of 20. Hard to imagine that happening.
But here’s what I think people fail to understand: if everyone arrives by car, we lose. We need to stop kidding ourselves that it’s a good idea to accommodate as many cars as we can. There’s just no way to handle that much traffic without paving over the whole neighborhood.
Adam, there was a very active discussion last night about the drop-off loop, focusing on whether it could even work, the trade-off between driver accommodation and open space, and student safety relative to long-idling cars and cars jumping curbs. Your questions are good ones. Stay tuned, and feel free to contact me directly if you want to discuss further. [email protected]
I haven’t checked with any bookies but I am thinking the odds of the traffic circle staying are not very good. It’s a whole lot of real estate to solve a problem that lasts all of 15 minutes once a day. They could alleviate that by ample use of busing, ability and incentives for parents to drop kids off earlier (having an aide open the building at 8 instead of 8:20) thereby reducing peak traffic from 8:20-8:35, changing the traffic light timing so that Beethoven gets emptied out on each light cycle for that time period, and making Beethoven one way from the school to the light so that cars can double up. But sacrificing that much square footage to solve a problem that lasts a grand total of 15 minutes per day is not a sensible thing to do.
I think I’m a little upset that Zervas just got put in front of Cabot. I don’t buy for an instant that this is just the MSBA. Multiple friends from Waban have mentioned that the mayor was being pushed to move the construction schedule for Zervas up. Cabot is in FAR worse shape. And now any delays for either school in front of us will push us until… 2019 to start the Cabot project. And Cabot is starting when now under this new plan.
All I have to say, is that if Zervas doesn’t get an increase in capacity just like EVERY OTHER SCHOOL in Newton, I think the various other communities should be pretty ticked off. I’m getting a little sick and tired of Waban getting special treatment.
And Greg, can we get a posting on the recent Austin St. meeting on Tuesday. It was worthy of some discussion.
Fignewtonville – keeping Zervas small and building another school helps everyone Newton by reducing traffic and never-ending busing costs associated with large schools while helping with overcrowding citywide.
With a new school, NPS could redistrict, shifting students out of overcrowded schools into the new school (sort of a domino effect – those closest to the new school would go there instead of wherever they are now, reducing overcrowding or making room for nearby students from overcrowded schools, etc.)
IMHO big schools are pennywise, pound foolish. The City saves money in the short run (but with all the additional land purchase required here, I’m not even sure of that) but loses in the long run with endless busing costs, increased traffic and reduced appeal: “The National Association of Realtors says 75% of home shoppers say the quality and availability of schools in the neighborhood is either “somewhat important” or “very important.” http://realestate.msn.com/7-neighborhood-threats-to-your-homes-value
Steven F (and Steve S) glad to hear others are skeptical of the drop-off circle and devoting more public space to the auto, and some of Steven F’s points are well taken — 9/11 security measures discouraging early arrivals is yet another contributor to the problem. But is the goal to increase the number of students arriving by car or to reduce congestion? Isn’t walking part of the solution?
What a myopic conversation. Not one mention about the programmatic benefits afforded by a by a larger school. All about, as Mr. Siegel so correctly observes, the dynamics of a 15 minute period each school day. It is not (so much) about how one gets to school. It is (or should be) about what is done once one is there. Two words: Teddybear Club. There was an endless amount of whining and complaining about traffic for that project. In the end though, where is the horror show on Comm Ave? Same hold true for the lights on Parker St over route 9 and probably would have held true for the Newton Center lights had the project been completed. The fear of traffic is either overblown or more likely used as an excuse to delay or reject development.
If I expected a rational and constructive discussion, I would not be on the internet. Village 14 never disappoints in that regard at least.
What are the programmic benefits of a large elementary school?
Adam, I don’t think they will get many walkers among the new arrivals because they will live too far away. I think many from Newton Highlands will be redistricted from M-R, and it’s a little too far to walk.
I’ve been conducting a survey which asks, among other things, whether people walk or bike to school, and if not, then why not. The vast majority of people that don’t walk cite time constraints and distance (mostly the former) as reasons. Those results are not suggesting that driving is a behavior that will be easy to change through incentives. The alternative is to bus the new kids as much as possible.
Steven, yes, we should hope that redistricted kids take the bus, but we should also be worried that those who currently walk will choose not to if the perceived safety deteriorates. Safe Routes has been conducting a survey also, city wide. Just getting those closer to walk all of the way some of the time (87% of the current Zervas student population is within a mile, and some still significant number within 1/2 a mile… I don’t have the number) or even part of the way would go a long way to solving the problem. Everyone has time constraints, but I think it’s often masking other considerations. It takes a lot longer to drive your kid than to go straight to your destination or leave them a few blocks from the school, especially if it means sitting in a traffic jam at the school. And of course, for those willing to let their kids walk themselves or with friends, it’s a real time saver. It’s not easy to change these behaviors, and the trends have been going in the wrong direction for years.
The conditions in front of the school for those 15 minutes has a big impact on our kids. It also has a big impact on people who don’t have kids.
Lucia, Zervas Principal Diana Beck and members of the school department can flesh this out better than I can, but they have noted that having 3-4 classes per grade vs. 2-3 classes per grade allows for:
• More options and higher success at creating functional class cohorts
• Greater flexibility around creating co-taught classrooms with benefit for both special and typical ed students
• More effective and faster scheduling of specialists and coaches
• Stronger teams, shared lesson planning, collaboration among grade-level teachers
Diana has stated that growing to a 4-class-per-grade design in the enlarged Zervas will have a positive educational and social result.
I don’t doubt that there may be some gains to be had from the larger school, but there are costs as well. So how does the community measure the cost/benefit? And in particular, how much of the benefit is for the education of the children as opposed to, e.g. easier scheduling for the staff.
These are important questions if we are basing a decision to put an extra 120 children into Zervas.
From what I understand, aren’t reducing co-taught classrooms? Aren’t there many examples of successful small group instruction in smaller schools? And regarding staff meetings and scheduling, shouldn’t that be eased by using standard technology e.g. collaboration tools?
When I read a list like the one above, I’m not clear on how much of it is real. And the more jargony and general something is worded, more suspicious it makes me that there is real meat under the nice packaging.
If the reason for the large school is to maximize capacity given that we are spending big bucks fixing the conditions of the school, then that’s a rationale I can understand. But to start claiming that the educational program requires the larger size, as a layperson I would need more convincing. It sounds so far like window dressing, sorry to say.
I think Steve is simply making debating points, defending a decision which was made in a very closed door manner. He is acting in a PR role now.
Here are some counter points.
1. Back around 2009, the elementary principals were polled on school size and their consensus was for 360-400 as the optimal size. That included the prior Zervas principal who was very solid on 400 as the maximum size for him to best manage the school.
The current Zervas principal will always make the best of what is going to happen, so that should be folded in to calibrating her commentary.
2. 26 co-taught classes were rolled out since 2009, very effectively, with most of them in schools with at most 3 classes per grade. It’s 2 classes per grade which inhibits co-taught class implementation and so the very small schools such as Ward tend to have no co-taught classes. The real argument is to enlarge smaller schools, where possible to approach 400 so they can benefit from co-taught classes. Target schools for that are Ward, Lincoln-Eliot, Williams, …
3 classes per grade is sufficient. 4 classes per grade has a negligible effect on co-taught rollout.
3. Team collaboration has been very effective with 3 classes per grade. The SC heard good evidence for that when I served. 4 classes per grade again has made no significant difference at all. At 3 classes per grade, in the 360-400 school model, teams are very strong.
4. The idea that specialist and coach scheduling is more effective and faster with 4 grades per class compared to 3 grades per class, has no support at all.
So you can see through Steve’s arguments.
The best plan for Zervas would still be to do a small scale expansion to run it to around 360-400 to maximize it’s effectiveness. Now that the 3 houses are going to acquired, the site has more flexibility and a singled story expansion, with little demolition, becomes possible.
That means an expansion along the scale lines of Day for around $8-12 million becomes feasible and the lion’s share of the $45 million allocated to school capital improvement in the operating override could be applied to building a 16th 400 student school at the Eliot St DPW yard.
That way not only could Zervas be upgraded to a top rate, right-sized school, but capacity on the south side could be enlarged by 500 seats rather than 100.
As the student population continues to rise, that is a huge difference in result and would best serve our students and the community at large.
The current approach to Zervas leaves Newton very exposed to over crowding which, with the current intensity of residential project development, threatens to overwhelm the school system.
One can analyze where we are in many ways, the fact is here we are — on a road to rebuilding whereas the prior road was a dangerous, unmaintained wreak. Getting here required a massive tax override during the biggest economic downturn since Babe Ruth. Image where we would be if Plan B — restructuring the entire elementary school system, creating more schools, requiring more capital expense as well as more operating expense in terms of added administration (principals, vice princs, etc) — was in the works. We’d still be on the same dangerous road!
With the current mega elementary school model, we are adding unnecessary overhead in terms of assistant principals. Countryside, Bowen, Memorial-Spaulding have already added assistant principals at a cost of $100K each. Zervas and Cabot are headed in the same direction and no doubt Angier will cite equity to get one too.
$600K of added over head simply because we want to go past the 400-450 student cap which protects the single principal model.
The override was well past the 2008 downturn and passed because of largely sound planning and projections. Zervas is the exception.
I argued the SC case in the TAB op-ed just prior to the vote and Zervas was the one element I knew was highly undefined and ill placed in an operating override. One hoped for sound planning, but we have not gotten that.
The current plans still assume that our 5 year population projections are accurate.
They are eerily similar to the 2008 population projections which underestimated student population growth by 600.
We are poised to repeat that same mistake, only this time we cannot fix our mistakes with modulars.
Hi Steve and Geoff,
I’ve spent much of the past 2-1/2 years discussing the specifics of our school building improvement plans so I won’t do it again today. Suffice it to say that we hold a variety of viewpoints.
Regarding my post above, Lucia simply asked about the programmatic benefits of our larger school model and in response I shared with her the perspective I’ve heard the Zervas principal express. Geoff, you and I can both speculate about what classroom count models are “sufficient”, “strong”, or without support. But Diana has expertise that neither of us have about servicing our students through classroom management. I have seen no reason that I shouldn’t defer to her judgment on this.
Thanks, Steve
Regardless whether larger elementary schools are good from a programmatic perspective (the research results are inconclusive), building a school for 490 students which can only be reached by vehicle by many of them is bad urban planning. It is also contrary to the energy sustainability and green principles which Newton supposedly espouses. Of course, demolishing a school instead of renovating and adding to it if possible is too.
It appears we got collation of officials that post-override are now saying the override did it way wrong. Well, it is what it is. And quite frankly, the cost of making a science lab or music lab over the top at a larger scale feels too costly in a smaller scale. Is that another thing I got wrong?
Um, Hoss, I am not sure that “collation” is the collective noun you are searching for.
As a collective word of joining local party ideals, I didn’t strike the right one – my mistake.
What Fig said. The whining about getting a brand new school while other districts will wait for years for even modest upgrades has really become tiresome. Other elementary school communities would be thrilled to get a brand new school.
@Steve Siegel: I apologize if I’m asking a question you’ve already answered, but I don’t recall seeing this: Does changing the timing of the Zervas and Cabot projects have any impact on the total cost? I thought part of the plan was to start collecting tax revenue now for Zervas that wouldn’t be needed until Cabot was done. Without MSBA funds for Zervas, doesn’t that change the formula?
Good question Gail. But Zervas and Cabot have not flipped in the schedule. They were always operating on independent timelines and the assumption until recently was that Zervas would either be built with students remaining onsite or it would require its own swing space. Both of these options would have added cost to the project. It was only after the MSBA clarified the timing on Cabot did we realize that with a little tweaking of the Angier schedule Zervas would fit into Carr without impacting the Cabot schedule.
Zervas will now start and finish a handful of months earlier than originally expected. Although this would seem to mean that there would be a handful of month’s less tax receipts to fund it, an earlier finish means lower cost escalation of materials and labor so there may not be a financial impact.