On Tuesday March 11 a meeting was held titled “Open Parent Forum on Zervas Renovation Project”. From another thread it sounds like “renovation” may mean a new school. The invitation read
We invite Zervas parents to join us on Tuesday, March 11th for an open parent forum to discuss the preliminary plans for the renovation/expansion of the Zervas School. The meeting will be held in Rm 9 at Zervas from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm. The Superintendent, members of the school department, school committee members, and members of the Zervas Building Committee will be at the meeting to review the preliminary plans.
Did anyone attend? What is the “real” plan going forward?
I was there for much but not all. Basically, the town is going to push through one way or another a much larger Zervas. There was lots of talk about process and input, but anyone with a sense of how these things go knows what the end result will be: a new school capable of accommodating over 400 and probably closer to 490 students. One way or another the site will expand to help make this feasible. Thats should be a pleasant process.
Claims were made by the Superintendent that this level of expansion were well advertised as part of the override debate. The plain fact that so many in the Zervas community were not aware that 450 or 490 was the price to be paid for renovating our horrid little facility indicates that the Super was at best incompetent in his messaging during the override.
There was also a good deal of whining from the Upper Falls contingent. They made their statements and received not one word of response from the group at the front of the room. Clearly the ship has sailed insofar as their desires are concerned which may be the best news of the night for those of us in the traditional Zervas district.
Question for Elmo, the ship has sunk for people in Upper Falls, is that what you mean? I infer from what you say that the traditonal Zervas people are pleased about a new school for their community. Also, they are happy that a new school won’t be built in U.Fs.
I do not speak for the Zervas community. I only speak for myself. Having said that I would say that there is significant concern about the impact of a school of that size on the neighboring community especially in terms of traffic. There was angst expressed about the educational impact of having a school of that size. I personally share the former concerns but not so much the latter.
An ideal solution I think would be a smaller Zervas first and then a small school elsewhere. Indeed, I think that the majority of the Zervas folks would love such a solution. My problem with the UF folks is that they seem to want to jump the line so to speak. They talk about a renovation to Zervas but, like the people from the city, it is hard to take them at their word. I’d rather have a big new Zervas than a small old one. In any event, the two school solution ain’t going to happen.
To Groot’s concerns about village character and walkability, can anyone who attended report on any discussions around transportation? Were requirements given on whether to make this a vehicle-friendly or pedestrian-friendly facility? Were demands made by the community in either regard? Or do people genuinely believe you can have it both ways?
I was there last night Adam. The message was clear that the ship has already sailed on both the location (present location) and the approximate size (490 students) of the new Zervas.
Since the school will be expanding from 320-490 that will mean that walkability will definitely decrease,at least in the short to medium term, since the new Zervas can be expected to take some of the overflow from surrounding schools on the fringe of the current Zervas district.
It’s only the very beginning of the design phase so all details of the new school beyond location and size will be hazy until a fair amount of design work is done.
Most talk last night about transportation involved neighbor’s concerns about increased traffic from the new school as well as traffic issues at the current school. John Rice said that traffic planning will be an integral part of the design process and that the city will be doing a detailed traffic study of all the surrounding streets to help with that.
I was there and i would say that was one pretty bad attempt at communicating with the public. They called a meeting for 6:30-7:30 and took up the entire hour with a few slides and a lot of talking, refusing to take questions. People finally started interjecting with questions about whether this was actually a forum at all. Meanwhile the presentations were designed for people that had heard nothing about this project, rather than assuming that people that would show up for such a meeting would probably have some background in the basics such as that there is an enrollment crunch and capacity shortage. So they took up an hour with a dumbed down, vague set of attempts at storytelling.
Then there was the index card stunt which really ticked some people off too. They had people write questions on index cards, they collected them and then basically said “Let’s see, we have 4 questions about finances, so let’s rephrase it as the related question we would be willing to answer” and pushed back on any follow up questions.
Some of the questions were expected but because there was little time left for questions, there wasn’t the chance to drill down on much. In their defense they stayed later and allowed more comments but the crowd was more or less Zervas people who talked about traffic problems, structural challenges close to wetlands, school size in general, the mechanics of transitioning the kids to Carr and back, etc. There was almost no discussion of “why are we even doing this here instead of adding schools where there are NONE??” There were comments about being broadsided and then the predictable denials – that the city had communicated – as if you would have had to have been out of the country to not have heard it’s a rebuild for 490 kids. There was debate about Question 1 with the lawyer explaining why they weren’t allowed to tell us the details of the project on the ballot. Can’t use numbers on ballot questions. So…no way to indicate to people actually voting what they are really voting for. You were supposed to make it to a town hall meeting. Really lame stuff.
Oh except that it isn’t necessarily a rebuild for 490 kids because if they don’t get those Beacon St. properties and if feasibility says _that_ instead of _this_, then they will scale it back. But they will and it won’t, so they will do what they want. But it’s early phase and we want your input. Please stay engaged.
I did have a couple of good chats afterwards with SC members. I think they are nice people and they do engage on a one-on-one basis. But the forum was more of an anti-forum. And I came away very depressed feeling the public is not being dealt with honestly, openly and most of all respectfully. It’s not that they were rude. It’s a quiet, measured, we-have-the-power-and-you-don’t feeling. The central planners have created the Plan and it will happen one way or another. So smile and put your kids on that bus.
Zervas is just one example of the high handed, know it all leadership this town is being faced with.
We have school problems the solutions to which are being dictated to us.
There are a profusion of 40b housing projects that are being forced down our throats. (Riverside, Court Street, Austin Street, Wells Avenue, etc etc.)
Affordable middle class houses are encouraged and allowed to be torn down and replaced with McMansions and condos for the wealthy. ( See our Zoning Laws )
We are losing over 500 city trees annually with a zero replacement rate program. ( Have you noticed the monuments to their demise in the form of untended left over stumps ?
Our sewers are backing into our basements. ( at least for the next 11 years ).
We have tax overrides to allow us to inflate the mayors staff. ( But to fix any of the above ??)
@blueprintbill: Well one thing Sandy Guryan explained last night was that contrary to popular belief, the added housing, e.g. Avalon, has not account for the enrollment increases. I also heard from a SC member – can’t remember who – that said that Austin St’s 2 BR apartments will not attract families with NPS students. Sandy said they were studying the data, still mystified as to where these students are coming from. It’s mostly just sudden increases in birth rates and/or lots of people just suddenly moving into an area. They can’t predict where it will happen. Therefore they must build capacity in the center of the city to hedge against enrollment popping up in some far corner of the city where they least expected it. See?
I was there. Steven Feinstein summarizes my comments. I will add an emphasis on the lack of respect once again shown for the citizens by the SC and School Department. The talking heads’ definition of “open forum” and “engage” are missing from the standard English dictionary. The speaker after Sandra Guryan even slipped up when he welcomed us to this initial meeting so we could learn what they have planned (not a direct quote; however many in the audience picked up on his underlying message that this is a done deal.)
The comment of the night was offered by the gentleman who stated people do not recognize Newton for the quality of their DPW reputation. I find it unacceptable that the committee could eliminate every other possible location for various simple reasons, yet no one on the panel, or their added technical support in the audience, could state that the land (reclaimed wetlands) has been evaluated to sustain a structure of 80,000 gsf; a fairly basic requirement for this project. There was talk of using pilings if needed to support the larger, (2 1/2 X of the current one), possibly multi-floor structure. That, along with the ~$2 million it will take to purchase the 3 houses on Beacon Street, are added expenses subtracted from the $40 million proposed budget with no direct educational benefit to the students for whom this project is supposed to help.
As Bill Brandel said so eloquently and arrogantly in a prior thread on this website, our comments are just noise to the elected officials. The only people that have a say are those that actually vote. Steve Siegel, I am disappointed with you. I voted for you. You have changed since joining the committee. I will not be voting for you with my next vote.
Steven,
Where did you find the cool-aid ?
Avalon has contributed to the school population !
You cannot build hundreds, if not a thousand apartments and not expect hundreds if not a thousand extra school kids !
Lets be honest here !
There is significant student population in the center right now. Bowen and Mason-Rice are the 2 largest schools. This is followed by Countryside so the 3 biggest are in relatively close geographic areas. Bowen’s area in particular is very dense. Interestingly there was an article in today’s tab how residents in that area want to have the area re-zoned from a multifamily zone to a single family zone. City officials say they are concerned about how the zoning change would impact the needs of young families who need access to public transportation. There seems to be a disconnect here , you allow more multi families to accommodate young families in an area that has an overcrowded student population already. Is the city going to be constantly behind in accommodating the student population and just shifting the problem. Countryside->Bowen->Mason-Rice- to another south side school possibly Zervas?
Also there is a real reluctance to send kids North which is why there is reluctance to place Bowen kids at Ward. They indicate that this is due to the middle schools in particular Bigelow but I believe it is really the North/South issue. This would lead me to believe that any capacity added at Cabot is to cover growth in their existing student population not to redistrict any kids to that school unless they were already slated to go North.
blueprintbill, sorry I must have gone too light on the sarcasm.
By the way, someone said that the money for the purchases of the Beacon St properties might come from CPA funds since it could be considered open space.
Uh, Patrick. My comment was not that the public’s voice is noise to elected officials. It was that this blog is noise, and not a substitute for the actual public process.
I’m a member of the Newton Highlands Neighborhood Area Council, but I was unable to attend last night’s meeting at Zervas. The President of our Council, Srdj Nedeljkovic, did attend and this morning he sent me and other Council members the following email. Srdj told me I could share it with others on the blog. I’ve known Srdj for almost three years now and I have never seen him as frustrated as he was by what transpired last evening at Zervas, or as blunt in what he had to say.
From: Srdj Nedeljkovic, President, Newton Highlands Neighborhood Area Council
“Hi everyone,
It was a very demoralizing meeting and probably ranks among one of the worst community forums I’ve ever attended.
Just to Recount:
We were first lectured to for an hour and indoctrinated with propaganda bout the preferred proposal. During that initial time, the school administrators presented only positive aspects of their plan with no questioning of possible negative aspects.
Then we were told to fill out 3″ x 5” cards that might be responded to (mine wasn’t), from which certain questions would be selected depending on the whim of the organizers.
The next step was to be told that basically nothing that was said by the community (i.e. voters and taxpayers) would influence the predetermined decision about the site selection and size of the school.
After that, there was really no substantive discussion the rest of the meeting which consisted of answers like “we don’t know yet” or “we’ll study that,” etc. Some questions/comments were simply ignored. The organizers just went on to the next question.
Also, there was no identification of any of the public speakers, making their comments basically anonymous. I didn’t notice any taking of notes or meeting minutes to document the discussion.
There was a perception that the decision regarding Zervas is a dichotomous one: either you accet the project as presented or there is no other alternative. In other words, you’re either “with us” or “go take a hike.”
The audience was continuously told that we must have lapsed in our understanding that this was predetermined years ago. Remember all of those mayoral neighborhood meetings where we were told that Zervas would be expanded to 498 students and that new students would be redistricted into Zervas?? Remember how we supported that proposal and voted for it as part of the Override?? Well, if you aren’t so sure about that, then you must have missed the meetings.
At the end of it all, I left the so-called forum thinking that there is no room for independent thought here. It’s either group-think or no-think. We should simply be glad that all the engineers on this ship are driving the boat the same way—iceberg be damned?
I’m afraid there is no amount of factual data that the school administrators are willing to take into account that would alter their decision; witness the fate of the first speaker who tried to engage the superintendent on issues of elementary school size.
To paraphrase the famous Cornelius Vanderbilt quote: “What do I care about the facts?? Hain’t I got the power.”
As I see it, if there is any hope of altering this process, we will need to get intervention from the mayor or the aldermen. Factual information may be helpful, but it’s only politics that can change this outcome. The other possible route is to fight the project on “technicalities” (which are very important and crucial) such as the wetlands issue, the lack of adequate playground and field space, trying to limit parking and asphalt paving on conservation land, etc.
Best,
Srdj
Sorry, there are TONS of kids in Avalon on Needham Street, because my kids have had PLENTY of playdates there
@blueprintbill & @Newton Mom – They didn’t say at last night’s meeting that the big housing developments (e.g. Avalon, etc) didn’t add to the enrollment. They said that they caused only a portion of the increase and that there have been also been a number of other factors that have been major contributors to the enrollment jump.
Jerry, if we don’t make “walkability” (whatever that means, exactly) a priority, especially for a larger school, the problem just balloons, as even those living within walking distance will choose to drive, as many do today. It may be more difficult to build a walkable larger school, but it’s even more important.
@Adam – agreed
I believe Avalon has nearly one bus going to Brown middle school . . . .
Walkability is so important. It keeps kids healthy. Plus parents don’t have to pay bus fees. One thing about large schools is that less kids can walk. And if you don’t want to pay the bus fee, then you land up driving your kid. If the city wants larger schools, transportation should be free.
When I bought my house (before we had kids), there was no bus fee. . . . and gradually the bus fees have been added.
Either make smaller neighborhood schools or lose the bus fees!
Somewhere on this blog there was a mention of the Zervas students and their use of Carr as swing space. Carr has just been newly renovated and was closed to Newton families in 1979. We live nearby and I want to say that the renovations are fabulous and this new building should be offered to the surrounding community for its own children not for temporary swing space for south siders.
Presently this north side school district sends its children to Horace Mann which is very small and overflowing with children housed in 3 portables. All the children in my community should be relocated to the new Carr school and the kids from Angier followed by Cabot and Zervas should use the existing H.M. school for swing space.
This unfortunate misstep by the school authorities should be re-evaluated. It is simply not fair to the families which live in the Carr/H.M.. district
@Newton Mom: Yes, Sandy G said a much smaller percent of enrollment increases come from residential development and that the rest is variable enough that they don’t know how to predict it and therefore need to add space more centrally located. It does defy logic that putting a school where there is none and where we bus kids to Countryside, Angier, Zervas and Mason Rice wouldn’t help absorb enrollment city wide. But they are worried that adding capacity in the south would leave them short in the north, e.g.
With the new Zervas, there will be such a traffic issue that the solution will, IMO, have to be busing a lot of the kids from outside the local neighborhood. So there’s your walkability plan: walk onto the bus, then walk off the bus.
@Patrick. Re Steve Siegel, I’ve had a lot of interaction with him lately discussing these issues. We come to different conclusions, but he spends a lot of time engaging with people, having meaningful, detailed exchange of ideas and information. I’ve found him to be honest and knowledgeable and really tries to connect. He doesn’t blow people off, he’s respectful, doesn’t dismiss things with hand-waving. There is a path that leads to building a 490 student Zervas. I just don’t agree with it. But I like Steve Siegel.
Bill, given your reputation for being a spinmeister for this administration, I will not enter into an extended semantics discussion with you. This blog, as Greg and others have worked so hard to maintain, is a legitimate form of the public voice in this social media world. Why else would there be so many threads covering political issues, and why some of the elected officials choose to participate on a regular basis? There is more interaction than offered at last night’s meeting.
I could not find your exact words relative to sources of noise; I am not a technical expert when it comes to search engine technology. I did fall upon an interesting quote you provided to Dan Atkinson, Staff Writer for Wicked Local Newton, which was posted December 15, 2009 as you were departing the BOA. You said: “There’s an unspoken assumption not to disagree with certain sacred cows in this city, it’s an unhealthy part of board culture.” Or is this a misquote?
Colleen,
Would Horace Mann be able to hold 400+ kids?
As an Angier parent (my kids take the bus), I am not eager for the kids to be bussed to Carr (which to me is far away). Seems silly that the only swing space is in one corner of the city, but then again, I am not a city planner.
The school is working hard to have parents NOT go to Carr, which will be difficult. Our whole neighborhood school is being removed from the neighborhoo.
I hope one day that Carr can be a neighborhood school for those neighbors. I can’t change the past, but the closing of Hyde, Emerson, etc was not good for the neighborhoods that they served.
One more thing, when a little house is knocked down, and a “town house” of two or three is built, we make our community denser. So one one family home (with two adults and two kids) have become three families. That is where the population comes from. It is not a surprise to anyone that between the higher density homes and the Avalon’s (and the like), that is where the number has grown.
BTW, it is fortunate that the SC and School Department offered their open forum to engage the citizens last night. This way they are able to say they solicited public input before the surveyor showed onsite today to perform an initial site survey. He appeared to be a nice, friendly, professional individual.
Just thought of a great idea! You bus kids to within 1/4 mile of the school and then make them walk! The kids get some walking in together, you save fuel costs, the bus doesn’t have to compete with the cars causing traffic right near the school.
When my eldest started at Horace Mann in 1996 there were 282 students, and no modulars. During the ten years my kids went there, class sizes brushed 30. Now there are 4 modulars and 427 students and a projected growth in enrollment to almost 450 in 2015. Carr is scheduled to be a swing space for the next 20 years, so it will be a long time before it can revert to a neighborhood school.
…and maybe use the money from the fuel savings to fund free sidewalk snow removal for all residents within a 1/4 mile radius of the school.
Steven Feinstein, I agree that Steve Siegel is honest and knowledgeable and really tries to connect. He presently no longer represents my views on how Newton should move forward. I only have one vote so that should not matter.
Ted, thanks for the updated numbers for H.M. I knew it now holds over 400. Angier students could use H.M. for swing space starting in Sept. without too much re-planning for the school dept.
For anyone who has not visited Carr recently go take a look. This neighborhood is over flowing with new families with young children. Now is the time to give them the opportunity to have a new modern facility. Angier will have a new building very soon. H.M. has been spruced up with new windows. I am sure you all will be comfortable until your grand new school is complete.
Ted,
With all due respect,it’s good that you can recognize that Horace Mann and other school facilities have been put at stress with such increases in population, but how will we ever revert to neighborhood schools in 20 years, or even 100 years, if policies promoting the densification of our city, with your encouragement, allowance and promotion of uncontrolled housing projects, be allowed to continue.
The city is a mature entity. Growth , like cancer, is detrimental to its good health and character. It’s time to reevaluate your position.
@patrick: your vote only matters if there is a contested race.
@Newton Mom, Horace Mann now has a current school population of 427 students and is forecast to be 446 by 2016. It has the 5th largest student population of all elementary schools in the city and is the largest elementary school on the north side of the city.
The Mayor should have bought Aquinas for Swing Space and converted Carr for Horace Mann.
Neither He nor his advisors can think long term. They are just thinking about the money they are going to make from Developers ruining our city.
Joanne,
You don’t mean to suggest that developers are bribing our elected officials do you ?
While it may seem that way with the blind support they get for their efforts and bank accounts, I wonder if it might not relate to reelection campaign fund donations. A seemingly more benign and perhaps slightly more transparent explanation. Are local campaign funding records free for examination ?
B’print, yes they are public records. Newton’s election commission is the place to go to look up campaign financial records for city contests.
@blueprintbill, in a word “demographics.” Newton’s population is aging. By 2030, about half of us living here will be over 65. Many of us will want to stay, and of those, many will prefer to downsize. With no place to move in Newton, seniors will simply move away and sell their single family houses to new families with children or builders who will tear down the house and put up a new McMansion. In addition, family sizes continue to shrink, while the average size of new homes continues to grow.
Sandy Guryan is not wrong when she says that most of the student enrollment increase has not come from housing developments. Indeed, most of it comes from families who buy their homes from empty nesters wh0 move away and married children with children who move in with their parents because they like the schools but cannot afford to buy or even rent here in Newton. That is certainly what has happened in the Horace Mann district–which is to say that the 50%+ growth in enrollment cannot be attributed to new housing units in the district.
The other day, a group of us had lunch with Barry Bluestone, who is an economist, former dean and director of the Dukakis Cener at Northeastern. I highly recommend that you read his Greater Boston Housing Report Card for 2013, particularly Chapter 4. He talked about how Newton and other similar communities with a lot of single family homes built after WWII were built for baby boomers. With all of the subdivisions that were built after WWII on what was open space, we now have a lot of traffic congestion because there are no neighborhood schools, let alone stores or other amenities. Well, all those baby boomers are now seniors or nearly there and are looking to downsize. The best place for them to live would be in multi-family, transit-oriented development in and around our village centers where they can get by with one car or none at all.
Many residents would like to see development grind to a halt and everything stay the same. That ignores reality, because unless you die or move away, each and every one of us is going to get older, and many of us will want to stay here in Newton. If we want to build for the future, in an age friendly community, we need denser development and smaller residential units in our village centers to accommodate our aging population. Or we are just going to see the cycle of turnover from empty nesters to new families continue.
To the person who said Austin Street was 40B, it is not. Just wanted to clarify.
I think Zervas will need to get bigger if it wants to renovated. It makes little sense to overhaul a school and not increase capacity. This is far from ideal, but if you have overcapacity, it needs to be solved somehow. And if you are going to invest millions in Zervas, it makes no sense to just ignore the capacity issue. I’d love Cabot to be 300 students but that ship sailed long ago, as it has for Horace Mann and most of our other schools. Our “village” school model is hard to keep with so many new students.
As for development, I think the issue is far less Austin Street and similar developments, and far more the empty nesters. Can’t do much about that. But on my street, in the next 5-10 years I predict 7 homes or more to be sold. All of them will be sold to young families. My neighborhood has gone from dominated by older residents to dominated by young families in less than a decade, and lot of those didn’t have kids when they bought. 5 years later, those kids are in school.
I am sympathetic to the traffic and the wetland concerns. But did folks at Zervas really think capacity wasn’t going to change? What makes Zervas different than the rest of Newton?
Ted: Not all seniors (65 & 66 years old ourselves) are looking to downsize. Not all Newton homes are large. Our 2-family house is already fairly small and with a small yard. It is ideal for a senior couple. But higher density in our neighborhood will make it more difficult for us to ‘age in place’ as the Newton Comprehensive Plan advocates. It is not just density that this plan advocates.
Joanne raised the topic of failing to acquire the Aquinas campus; still no explanation.
I would like to hear from the SC how the CATS Academy Boston was able to outmaneuver the City to gain control of the former Trinity Catholic facility? I looked on their website and did not see any reference to them offering tax exempt land to the Catholic Church to locate facilities for seven parishes within the city’s boundaries. The front of the building has been a high school for more than the 50+ years I have been living here. The rear addition originally was a 16 classroom addition for an elementary school. It seems like a building we could be using if we had better negotiators working for the city.
Hey, good news. The Boston Globe today had a story listing pile-driver operators in the top 30 fastest-growing jobs. That means there should be plenty of available workers to drive all those piles to support the new 80,000 gsf Zervas building on the reclaimed wetlands.