According to Ellen Ishkanian’s story, “Parents question school project,” in today’s Globe West, Zervas parents want to know why their school has to absorb the overcrowding problems that are happening across the school district. She wrote that at last week’s meeting with district officials, “parents asked why their school was being used to solve problems that are systemwide.”
I think that statement sums about what bothers me about this Zervas discussion. The answer, to me, is obvious: because you’re part of a larger community. The Newton schools have a problem — overcrowding. The people who have been studying the issue for many years are saying that the best solution is to enlarge or rebuild Zervas. Why shouldn’t the Zervas community help solve the problem?
It’s been said here and elsewhere that the community feels blindsided, that people never expected that the size of the school would change so drastically. I can understand that Zervas parents would expect to get a renovated school at a slightly larger size. But from the outside looking in, as a parent whose kids went to Countryside — a school where enrollment ranged from 475 – 500 — I’m left wondering: Why shouldn’t Zervas be as big as the schools surrounding it? If the city needs more space for elementary school students, how could we possibly renovate a school without adding a significant amount of space?
Zervas families have been lucky to have such a small school tucked into a neighborhood. If they want to make that same community feeling work in a bigger school, they can. Things don’t have to stay the same to produce great results. Regardless, it’s not just about Zervas.
Interesting point Gail and really not that different from the debates surrounding many projects. Abuttters to the Riverside T and, currently, the Austin Street parking lot, want to know why their neighborhoods have to be the sites of developments that also happen to benefit our entire city. (In the case of Riverside and Austin Street, they provide much needed housing for young couples and elderly people that don’t necessarily want and/or can afford a house with a yard and want to be less car dependent by being near public transportation.)
The “blindsided” complaint is similar too. Expanding Zervas was front and center in the override proposal. But I never heard any one raise these concerns at the time. Abutters at Riverside tried to stop that project saying they were denied a public forum — a claim that’s astounding to anyone who has followed that project. And there have been a public meetings and committees talking about Austin Street for more than five years but suddenly we’re hearing those same blindsided complaints.
Gail, it isn’t just about Zervas. Newton is progressing on a long range plan to gradually improve the physical condition and educational spaces of all our elementary schools. Many of these projects are adding capacity while bringing buildings up to current standards. Three schools were improved in the Tier One projects over a decade ago: Bowen, Williams, and Memorial Spaulding. Angier is about to happen, followed by Zervas and Cabot. Other schools that will get help include Lincoln Eliot, Ward (another school that is small like Zervas, but may be enlarged significantly to provide capacity), and Pierce. Our long range planning is organic — we have a target but the sequencing is subject to change in response to organic enrollment pressures and other factors such as locating a consolidated preschool.
The City’s thinking on Zervas size has been relatively unchanged for 7 years and has been shared in published documents and presentations for 7 years — mid 400s. At the same time the high side for any school in the district has been 500. NPS responded with strong buffer zone utilization when Countryside and now Bowen hit 500 students. As a result the enrollment in Countryside is gradually dropping to the mid 400s and we’ll see next year the impact of NPS efforts on the Bowen population.
The Zervas number being discussed has recently increased from 450 to 480-490, and this increase seems to be the source of the “blindsided” sentiment expressed by folks who have worked to remain informed over the years. I can appreciate why this change caught people by surprise.
The driving factor behind this new number is that we wanted 24 total classrooms at Angier for flexibility, but for the enrollment number the MSBA approved, 465, they would only approve 22 classrooms. Zervas is a non-MSBA project so we realized we could provide 24 classrooms but we needed to design for a higher student count since we want class size equity across the system. Might we actually, eventually get to 490? Yes, and this places Zervas within the company of four other schools including Angier that will have enrollments between 450 and 500 students by 2017. For this post I am not saying this population is good, neutral, or bad, but I wanted readers to understand where this enrollment number came from. I have read suspicions on this blog that NPS always planned on 490 but kept it secret, or that enrollment is so out of control that we keep pushing for a higher number. Just not so.
Adam made an important point on another V14 thread, that larger schools don’t translate to larger class size. Quite to the contrary, many of our larger population schools have smaller class size because room count gives us student distribution flexibility we don’t have in the smaller schools.
So in summary, to the question “Why Zervas?”, the answer is that Zervas is next up in a citywide, 20+ year plan.
Hate to be a broken record, but residents don’t take advantage of opportunities to find out what’s going on in the City until well into the process or after a vote. There’s no way voters can say that they didn’t have every opportunity to find out about the issues involved in the override questions. As for Austin St., when it first came up at least 5 years ago on the Tab Blog, I asked how the neighbors felt about it and I was slammed by several who said that they thought it was a great idea. Not one person raised an objection.
I remember once making up leaflets to inform people about a meeting related to NNHS (with my own money), placing them on doors on every house on all 4 sides of the site (it took 2-3 hours). Later one of the neighbors yelled at me because she hadn’t bothered to read the leaflet and claimed that I should have leafletted the neighborhood several times. Too many people think it’s someone else’s responsibility to deal with these issues, even when the information is staring them in the face.
In addition, Newton’s a really nice place to live so for better or worse, most people aren’t overly concerned about these projects. I have no idea how to fix that issue, but I’ve certainly tried with very limited success.
Regarding “it’s not about Zervas”, I would say “it’s not just about ‘it’s not just about Zervas'”. The complete sentiment is “Why is the city using Zervas to solve a city wide enrollment problem *when there are other equally effective ways of solving the enrollment issue in ways that preserve and promote walkable/neighborhood schools? Some people don’t think it makes sense to destroy 320 seats to get 470 for the price of a new school, which by the way results in an oversized Zervas considering that particular site in that particular neighborhood, and still leaves a big geographic section of the city with no school.
Regarding “blindsided”, to most people who get their news from the Tab and the information circulated during the override, it was not even remotely clear that Zervas would be rebuilt as a much larger school. Examples that were provided by an earlier posted as evidence that such information was in the local media:
http://newton.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/newton-mayor-proposes-three-tax-overrides-to-fund-capital-needs
http://www.nnchamber.com/how-do-you-feel-about-newtons-proposed-tax-overrides/
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/west/2013/02/03/rival-sides-mobilize-for-newton-override-vote/2CHFITG3TgPZ7KlFBIsIlK/story.html
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/newton/2013/03/03/wenewton/iMCGb5XQGCDIJBevZj2Q0M/story-1.html
http://www3.newton.k12.ma.us/sites/default/files/users/44/override%20materials.pdf
http://lwvnewton.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/LWVN-Override-Outline.pdf
All mentions of Zervas were about “renovation”, “expansion”, “larger”. The override question was about addressing the conditions and capacity of Zervas, i.e. the school itself, which needs assembly space.
It’s not reasonable to blame the majority of people who are not going to study the LRFP or one slide out of 95 in a ppt.
The proof that the city didn’t get the point across is in the fact that so many people didn’t know. When politicians want to communicate with voters, for example, when they’re trying to get re-elected, they figure out how to get their message through.
By the way, people with little kids about to go to elementary school are rather busy – consumed with the kids, their jobs, and just slogging through daily life. You want to get the gist of what’s happening from the local paper, from notices from the city or the school. You don’t want to have to study source materials like the two-volume LRFP or show up to evening meetings for long slide shows. The coverage of Zervas emphasized that the plans were early stage and vague. I don’t know how else to say it – there were no indications to the average news reader that this was happening. And if 100 parents show up to a meeting angry they just found out about it, that’s an indication that maybe these facts were not communicated very well.
I guess I should add that “expansion” and “larger” are not sufficient descriptions because most people agree that *some* expansion is needed, myself included. The question is how much larger and that is the part that was not indicated as being *double* the capacity.
SC meeting minutes:
6/23/08:
“Jeff Young talked about the reasons principals felt a 350-400 school size was
ideal …”
Long Range Facilities Planning: Newton’s Elementary Schools 4/11/12
http://www3.newton.k12.ma.us/sites/default/files/users/8/April%209,%202012%20Long%20Range%20Facilities%20Packet.pdf
Slide 13:
Zervas second large project:
Possible MSBA
South feeding
330 to 450 students
Long Range Facilities Planning Power Point 10/15/13
http://www3.newton.k12.ma.us/sites/default/files/users/44/Long-Range%20Facilities%20Planning%20Powerpoint%20-%2010-15-13_0.pdf
Slide 6:
Maintain 15 neighborhood schools
Optimize schools sizes 400-450 students, 20-24 full sized
classrooms
After reading Steve’s blog entry I am even more convinced that the south side should build a new school as well as a modest renovation/update for Zervas.
One reason is that school enrollments continue to increase city wide and most of the elementary school sites aren’t suitable/adequate for oversized rebuilds.
Here on the the north side we have an empty school Carr which will be used to accommodate the surge in children eventually.
Another reason a new school will be needed is this increasing demand for pre-school space. I was a little surprised by Steve’s notion that a consolidated space would be a possible solution for this problem. In Newton I can’t see that this would ever be feasible. Looks like we need at least one more new school building maybe more.
Thank you Geoff, the two documents you link to are quite helpful for readers to see the Zervas planning in more detail, as well as how it fits within the context of a citywide scheme.
Slide 11 of the 2012 document and Slide 13 of the 2013 document reiterate the target Zervas enrollment of 450 and compares it to other schools. These two documents reveal that our long range plan is complex and comprehensive. Also the Zervas target capacity recently grew from the mid to the upper 400s for reasons articulated above, revealing that our plan is also flexible allowing for changes as we learn from our project experience.
The back and forth about what was planned and how it was communicated is secondary to the fact that there is a better plan that would also solve capacity and conditions issues, that people like better for about the same amount of money.
The arguments put forward are essentially a) there has been talk for ten years, b) there are powerpoint slides and spreadsheets, c) there was a lot of work put into it and it’s detailed, d) it addresses the problems. But that doesn’t make it the best plan or the right plan. There was a lot of effort and detail put into the designs of the Titanic, Fukushima, and the Ford Pinto, too.
The LRFP is not cast in stone – it can be changed. It’s not a law, it’s a plan. More people are becoming aware of it as its implications become more real. That’s a natural process and the city should not be so invested in its past work that it cannot openly discuss alternatives.
In other words, instead of saying “this is the plan, we made a while ago”, discuss the alternatives on the merits. I don’t see any arguments saying “we would like another school, but we can’t build it because . Otherwise the city’s arguments come across as arbitrary.
ugh HTML. It was supposed to be “can’t build it because (angle bracket) really compelling, undeniably convincing (close angle bracket)”. Gotta remember not to use those <, > signs.
I was just comparing sites at Zervas and the Upper Falls playground site on Chestnut St. The U.Fs site appears bigger as there are adjacent tennis courts anpd a parking area. Also since homes may be purchased next to Zervas at a high cost why couldn’t properties next to the U.Fs site also be bought to expand the site location there?
Another way of looking at it is why keep repeating the same mistake of enlarging neighborhood schools and making it more difficult to walk and increasing traffic instead of building more smaller schools. “But from the outside looking in, as a parent whose kids went to Countryside — a school where enrollment ranged from 475 – 500 — I’m left wondering: Why shouldn’t Zervas be as big as the schools surrounding it?”
I strongly support the Superintendents’ efforts to move away from temporary solutions like modulars, but that doesn’t mean I want to move away from small elementary schools. And, if the past is predictive, Zervas’s estimated renovation costs will be significantly less than final costs.
One argument for the new Newton North was renovation would be almost as costly. Once you start discussing purchasing neighborhood properties, I don’t see how it’s not the same story with Zervas.
Steve Siegel!
My point in posting those links was to confirm that 450 has been the limit for some time.
A feasibility study should further examine how close Zervas should prudently come to that limit. But it should NEVER go over it.
Further the Zervas feasibility study should take into account the fact that it is the smallest elementary school site in the city, abuts wetlands, will see higher traffic density at larger sizes, will see higher bus costs at larger sizes, will see higher administrative costs at larger sizes and so on.
It should also explore how acquiring the 3 properties on Beacon St adjacent to Zervas would impact the plans for the school upgrade.
I contend that in that scenario, a single story low cost renovation which fixes the gym, cafeteria, replaces modulars with permanent construction, adds classrooms and requires no swing space becomes possible.
Much like the Day project with similar costs. Maybe up to $15M.
Creating open space where those 3 Beacon St properties lie would not only add needed playing fields to Zervas but put in the open space bank some added space which we might use later in some other project (such as Williams) where we might need to encroach on parkland a bit. [State law mandates no net open space loss.]
All of this is what a feasibility study should reveal.
Which makes it wondrously perplexing that the SC could already give the go ahead for 490.
That contradicts the 450 limit and the whole idea of the feasibility study.
In fact, one would reasonably conclude that the Zervas feasibility study is a mockery of due facility process.
According to slide #6 in the Long Range Facilities plan discussed here (“Site Potential for Expansion”), Angier, Cabot, Horace Mann, Lincoln Eliot, Underwood, Ward, Williams and Peirce all have smaller sites than Zervas.
I’m sorry that this thread has moved away from what I thought was the most significant point of Gail’s original post, which is how we move from the NIMBY battles to conversations about what’s best for our city as a whole?
I understand why it happens but the question is where should/can the greater good leadership come from? City Hall? The TAB? A new citizens coalition?
Probably one of the first things we could do to help the conversation is remove the word NIMBY from our lexicon. It is the correct concept in general but it just makes everyone defensive.
In theory, City Hall should own the leadership of greater good for the city but when it comes to individual projects, it seems that neighbors’ first instincts are to distrust City Hall. I don’t know if that’s a general reaction to government, a residual from Newton North, or a symptom of not liking a project. But I must say, in all the years that I’ve paid attention to Newton news, I have never seen more people protesting projects being developed in their own neighborhoods than I do right now.
Gail,
You have to consider the school site and the adjacent fields to get the full playing areas picture.
All of the schools on your list have substantial playing fields abutting the school site.
Zervas does not.
That is a huge difference.
Greg Reibman — I would have guessed that Waban Area Council would be talking about this one. But their home page lists eight issues of focus, one is Angier, but no mention of Zervas. Is this just over the boarder? Highlands? http://www.wabanareacouncil.com
In general, our Ward reps on the BoA should be the town criers. They should be doing occasional mtgs.
Gail/Greg:
I agree with the initial point. I live close enough to Newton North to really care about the site and the project. On a personal level, I think the old orientation of the school was better for me. I had a hard time at the time balancing what I thought was best for the larger community and what was best for my own circumstances.
I really think any school seeing significant investment by the city needs to be expanded to address the new realities of enrollment. Now perhaps a better argument would be “don’t increase us to 490 but 425-450 due to the site”. But the days of schools in the low 300s are behind us. That is not a good thing, but as long as class size is kept low, I think it isn’t the worst thing. And not expanding the facilities makes it impossible to keep class size low.
Gail Spector __ Let’s face it, if the City was riddled w heroin deaths, prostitution, Dunkin Donut robberies and joblessness, no one would care about schools, 40B projects etc. The concerns are individual home value and maintaining status quo
Greg,
That is a key question. I can offer some comments.
In 2009, after initially supporting Ken Parker in the Mayoral primary, I had meetings with Setti Warren and Ruth Balser in which both sought my endorsement.
The deciding factor for me was that Setti showed very strong support for small schools. That was a key topic in our conversation. I was pushing the 360-400, possibly going to 425 model and I got strong confirmation for that view from Setti.
So I’m puzzled at the shift in Setti’s position. So how can we look for leadership from the city to make sure we don’t supersize our elementary schools into difficulty at substantial expense?
Also, the NPS Superintendent, David Fleishman comes from a prior position at Chappaqua in New York where the elementary schools are over 500, everyone appears to be bused and they have more money than we do to deal with super sized elementary school problems. One of their elementary schools even has 2 assistant principals.
That’s a very different model from the one which has served us well for at least 40 years or more.
Then there is the SC, where although I strongly believe that there will be very positive improvements as we shift the schools faster towards best practices, facilities seems to still be their Archilles heel, with both Matt and Steve supporting the recent change in policy to blast way past 450 as the absolute maximum size an elementary school can be.
One thing to keep in mind here is that Newton often operates elementary schools way past their design size. Countryside was designed for 350 and hit 500.
With around 20 classrooms Countryside was in the vicinity of 500 at one point.
So with 24 classrooms planned for Zervas, it will be possible for Zervas to balloon up to 540 with K-2 at 20 students/class and 3-5 at 25 students/class. There is ample precedent for class size to go as high as 28.
The only place I can see for us to look for leadership is the Board of Aldermen, which has in the past been quite helpful in changing the direction of facilities plans.
I recall when Yeo and Kusiak were trying to get all of the facilities money spent on Day at the expense of Zervas, Burr and Horace Mann. The aldermen helped fix that problem.
So I look to the aldermen to counter this trend to supersizing our elementary schools.
They have served the longest in general and will still be here in 4 years, when the current leadership on the SC and the Mayor have moved on. And maybe the superintendent as well as he has a 4 year contract.
One thing that could help is dealing with local concerns earlier in the process.
No matter how long a development process goes on, the average citizen only learns of it when there’s a major story with concrete details appear in the Newton Tab – the years of documents and meeting before that never reach the general audience of citizens.
Those working on these projects should resist the powerful urge to delay riling up the local populace until late in the game. If there are details of the plan that are likely to rile people up then get them out there clearly and early and take the heat then. If that only happens right before an important decision or vote it’s not a surprise that people suspect that they’re being ‘played’.
I think that was a big problem last summer with the Engine 6 project and somewhat of a problem with Zervas – i.e. most of the people in the room at last week’s meeting seemed to have just learned that Zervas was expanding from 320 to 490 students only a few days before the vote to proceed.
@Jerry: People said that the Austin Street project snuck up on them too, but we were writing about it in the TAB years ago. I would submit that most people don’t pay attention until a project feels real.
Gail: “If the city needs more space for elementary school students, how could we possibly renovate a school without adding a significant amount of space?”
If you need a crown, do you ask why not pull the tooth and get an implant?
Zervas needs some expansion for its 300+ kids to have a cafetorium and a media room. It doesn’t need to be torn down and rebuilt as a brand new ~500 kid school. We voted on addressing the needs of Zervas, not using Zervas to address the needs of Newton.
You can build a new school for the amount we are spending on Zervas and add more than twice the number of seats. So forget NIMBY – this is about adding more capacity for the dollar in places that have kids but no school. It’s about how best to use tax dollars to solve the city wide problems.
The algorithm the city seems to be using is
if renovating
then
set size = 500
rebuild from scratch
Seems a bit simplistic to me.
Our ward aldermen should be the ones representing the (sorry Gail) NIMBY view.
Our at-large aldermen, should be charged with representing, well, our at-large interests.
In practice it doesn’t work that way: The at-larges mostly act as if they represent their home wards first and the city second.
And then there seems to be an unwritten rule (at least I think it’s unwritten) where aldermen from outside a ward, appear take the lead from the aldermen who live in that ward so they can in return get their support when it comes to a vote in their back yard.
I’m curious, is this now a done deal? Engine 6 certainly died because of local concerns, but I think the Austin Street process and now this process seems far less dependent on local concerns.
Why have the maps on the city’s website changed the outline of Cold Springs Park? CSP no longer reaches to Beethoven Avenue. That land is now assigned to the Zervas School. When was the the public meeting discussing this?
“most people don’t pay attention until a project feels real.”
Add to that the fact that the press never wrote anything about this Zervas project.
@Gail – “most people don’t pay attention until a project feels real”. Yes, I think we’re saying similar things. My point is that the communication about projects should take that into account, in the latter half of these projects.
First, “make it real” to the citizenry, especially the problematic bits, then solicit local feedback, then make those key decisions that take into account local concerns.
So Jerry, you’re saying that you want the citizen and/or municipal committees to issue some really outlandish statements, just to rile the public’s attention?
Maybe…
As you well know, most of these groups are engaged in very deliberate, thoughtful conversations. They work closely with city or school staff and devote many hours to do so.
Gail, now that the city is reassigning existing wetlands to the Zervas School property, I guess your position about various school plot sizes has more credibility. It is amazing (maybe even illegal) what the city can do with wetlands without public discussion.
@Greg – Really???
No, I’m suggesting for example that the School Committee might have made a more concerted effort to let the Zervas community know in “a real way” that the school was going to expand from 320 to 490 students, more than a week ahead of the vote. That’s a very essential and major aspect of the plan.
I’m not suggesting anything “outlandish”. In fact I suspect that the School Committee knows now that they didn’t do a very good job of communicating that ahead of time.
In this case, most of the parents at last week’s meeting had just heard for the first time about the proposed 490 student population. Yes, if they had read all the documents and attended all the meeting and dug into it earlier they would have known this already – or actually they would have known it was going to be 450 students.
An important point is that there are two very distinct types of public input. There’s the public input from the wonks, the bloggers, the people who regularly attend meetings, sit on committees, and are knee-deep in all sorts of civic affairs and then there’s the rest of the city.
I think you know that I’m not suggesting riling people up unnecessarily. I’m suggesting communicating clearly with the average citizen about the nature of these project early enough so that they can have some say in the process. The alternative is leaving people feel like they’re being railroaded and that the “public input” is just window dressing. In this case, I don’t think that was the School Committee’s intent but I certainly think there was a communication problem with the average citizen.
@Jerry: Sorry for being so flip. The reality is the information was there. But there was such an concerted effort to support the override that the details weren’t scrutinized. Tougher media scrutiny or an opposition that wasn’t run by a kid who kept alienating folks by focusing on the past, might have made a difference. Not that this override would have, or should have failed. But the details weren’t part of the conversation. Lesson learned perhaps?
Jerry, regarding your comment:
“The alternative is leaving people feel like they’re being railroaded and that the “public input” is just window dressing. In this case, I don’t think that was the School Committee’s intent but I certainly think there was a communication problem with the average citizen.”
While I would like to agree with you, I believe the behavior of the SC shows an effort to railroad the Zervas project. How else do you explain the designation change this week of the wetlands next to Zervas now being school property, and thus, I assume, buildable and/or usable land. Last week, the audience was assured the wetlands would not be affected. What has happened in one week?
And it has been coordinated with Google. Changing information on Google maps takes time and communication. I know. I have provided them corrections to the local Newton streets. It does not happen quickly.
I attended the town hall meeting at NNHS when the override was presented. The seven classroom addition was tied to the elimination of the 5 modular classrooms (leaving a net of only 2 additional classrooms), a new library, a new cafeteria, a new auditorium and a few other new special purpose rooms so the children would receive a full experience at the new Zervas. I would be willing to bet that most of the citizens at the meeting could not establish how 80,000 gsf would be allocated. There was no mention of a 24 classroom building at that meeting. We thought then that the new administration was being straight with us. Nothing has changed; dishonest politics as usual.
“In this case, most of the parents at last week’s meeting had just heard for the first time about the proposed 490 student population.”
Jerry: And why is that?
@Bill Brandel – I thought I spelled that out pretty clearly.
.1% of the population will have learned about the 450 target from attending a School Committee meeting, or reading the details in a voluminous report.
99.9% of the population will learn about it when the Tab and the PTO runs a feature article clearly saying “Proposed Zervas expands to 450 students”.
If you truly want public input and local buy-in for any project, you have to take that into account. If you say to those 99% that they should have seen it in the report and they weren’t paying attention, then you shouldn’t be surprised at their reaction.
BTW – even the School Committee says that the 450 to 490 increase happened late in the game with even much less public discussion.
Jerry: Who is “they?”
Um. Who are “they?”
@Bill Brandel – sorry Bill. I think its time for me to check out of this thread.
Jerry: Fair enough. However, I’d like to complete this point, as others have also raised this issue:
NPS and the administration have given numerous presentations on this plan, and there are multiple documents that are easily find-able (search: Zervas project). It was no secret.
Who was all told? I don’t know the audiences for these prezos, but I do know that the School Committee, at the least, Board Committees, the Zervas Working Group, etc. all knew about it. I would imagine that the Zervas principal was not left in the dark. The School Council? So when one says “they” did not tell people, the question is who was supposed to tell whom? Because it seems that NPS and the administration weren’t exactly shy about sharing what they were planning with Zervas.
Patrick, I think you’re over-thinking this map thing a little bit. For example, take a look at Burr on the City of Newton GIS map – a little bit of land surrounding the school is shown as City of Newton School Dept, and the rest is “park or recreation area”. But if you look at an Assessors map, it’s shown as one big lot owned by City of Newton School Dept. Same with Zervas. Honestly, given the historical state of technology in the city/school dept, I kind of doubt that they’re in cahoots with the Google.
Patrick, please cite your mapping source so we know what you’re talking about. Feel free to use hypertext.
Google Maps is a peer-reviewed system. I’m not sure, but I might have been the one who contributed the park boundary a few years ago, based on the Newton Conservators map. It still seems to match that map . Is Newton Conservators in on the conspiracy, too?
I think that if the current plan for Zervas had been explictly advocated in the operating override, it would have been very controversial and the override would likely have failed.
If the community is as well informed and on board as Bill argues, then there should be no problem with a community wide vote being taken so we can see the wholesale agreement that this current plan is a great one.
How about it Bill?
Would the city be game to have a vote taken on the Zervas 490 ‘super size it’ plan so we can be assured that the community is on board?
Epstein:
Yeah it’s too bad that we didn’t have any members of the School Committee who had positioned themselves as the counter to the Political Insiders Group watching out for us! Surely such a person would have warned us then and, if for some reason they didn’t, they would be accepting some of that responsibility now.
Where do you think we live. Crimea? :-)
Geoff: We already spent $70-80K on this referendum. Rather, I would like to see people who are in the know on these matters communicating with the public. It seems like a more cost-effective model for communication. It is clear that NPS and the administration communicated their thought process to various groups. For example, how long were you aware that 450+ was under consideration, and why did we not hear from you (and to be fair, anyone else from the SC), earlier? Part of the job of the SC and Board is to keep constituents informed, no?
The Newton Conservation Commission enforces a long set of regulations mandated by the state for any wetland area. No one can build within 200 feet a these areas. No matter who owns the land these rules apply to everyone.
Colleen, the two newest modulars at Zervas (south end of builting) are less than 200 feet from the designated wetlands, so the city does appear to have the ability to get a variance from the conservation commission when they want.
Overcrowding in the whole system, we have over 410 students from Boston being educated in Newton at a cost of $15,080 per student for a total cost of $6,182.800.00 The city received n$2,900.000 from the state, which left a balance of $3,282.000.00 plus $575,000 for administration fees which leaves a total of $3,857.000.00 that is left for us the Tax payers to pay for, plus special education which is not even figured in. This program was suposed to be fully funded and the Boston students would only fill empty seats. Our school’s are bursting at the seems and everone is talking about new schools, how about healping to ease the burdon and stop Metco now.
Adam, I do not know if the Newton Conservators is involved in a conspiracy. I do know that both the Google map and the city’s assessor’s map changed this week to remove the restricted wetlands between the Zervas School and the private property at 64 Beethoven Avenue and 75 Winslow Road.
Your informational map of Cold Spring Park on the Newton Conservators website does not stretch to Beethoven Avenue so your map neither confirms nor denies that the wetlands extend to Beethoven Avenue. Your map leaves out other information regarding the park so I was never concerned about the omission of this part of the outlying wetlands.
If you visit the Newton Website at: http://www.newtonma.gov/civicax/filebank/documents/29703
you will see a city generated map (dated January 1, 2010) showing the restricted wetlands stretching to Beethoven Avenue. The land is coded as “restricted wetlands – wooded swamp deciduous”.
Patrick, the basic Assessors’ map just shows lots. Click on the GIS mapping tab, be sure that the “Permitting and Conservation” box is checked, and you’ll see that an area of “wetland restrictions” still extends behind the school to Beethoven Ave.
Patrick, I don’t think Google Maps has changed recently. Perhaps you were looking at how Bing shows the wooded area? ISTM you’re mixing wetlands with feature or property boundaries. Only the wetlands map you cite demarcates wetlands. If you think the assessors changed the property boundaries recently, call and ask why.
Tricia, thank you; you taught me something new. I will continue to use this feature.
Adam, I do not use Bing; I have been using Google maps since I stopped using Mapquest about 10 years ago. Bing does show the green area extending to Beethoven so Bing and Google are not in agreement. Bing reflects the 1/1/2010 Newton map.
I will stick with my observation that the identified wetlands had been identified as a separate parcel (just one of the many that comprises CSP), and now it is part of the Zervas property.
If the city has portable structures on wetland areas, they may have received a variance. The Conservation Commission would have minutes indicating when this was allowed prior to when the portables were installed.
However when Zervas was built there was no river/wetland protection act. These new regulations were inacted during Weld’s administration. Any new permanent structure added to this site would have to conform to very different standards than in the 1950s.
Colleen, to be clear, I do not think the modulars are on wetlands; they are within 200 feet of the current wetlands. I say current wetlands because yesterday a surveyor was on Winslow Road surveying the wetlands boundary near the corner of Winslow Road and Wilber Street. The surveyor was not retained for his services by any of the local homeowners, whom I questioned.
Last week when I spoke to the surveyor working on the west side of the school property, I asked him if he was doing any measurements on the wetlands touching Beethoven Avenue and the south border of Zervas (as delineated by the school fence). He said he was not. I failed to ask him if he would be doing that this week. My mistake for not asking all the right questions.
@Hoss: Since you asked, The Waban Area Council, which has been legally recognized since January as the newest of the four existing Area Councils in Newton, is up to its eyeballs in possibly every community issue in Waban. While you cited our web page, http://www.wabanareacouncil.com, you didn’t research quite far enough. Were you to look at our Agenda for March 13, under the heading “Meetings,” you would see that we listed a pertinent Zervas discussion under “updates”. We are aware that there are big changes occurring at Zervas as there have been at Angier and we receive reports on Zervas each month from our Ward Alderman, John Rice (as we did even when we operated as an ad hoc committee previously). In addition, Ward Five School Committee person, Steve Siegel, is invited to all of our meetings. Since Zervas’ rebuilding/reconstruction had barely begun, we had not yet dedicated a page to it. That will likely change soon. Our discussion at our meeting last Thursday lasted a full hour. We hope that the portion of the Zervas community that falls within our catchment area will come forth with their opinions, as we attempt to reflect their interests back to City Hall. We announce our meetings in Zervas’ PTO e-letters and welcome citizen participation at every meeting. Again, to answer your question, Hoss, Zervas is, indeed, in our catchment area; however, the kids who are educated there reside in many communities, including Waban and Newton Highlands. Our minutes from March 13 will reflect our discussion of Zervas.
No matter what, Newton is headed for a band of schools in its central zone: Angier, Zervas, Cabot and Ward which will designed for 465, 490, 480 and likely 490 (Ward) which coupled with Bowen at 24 classrooms will allow each of those schools to float as high as 540 with K-2 at 20 and 3-5 at 25 with 4 classes per grade. (240 + 300)
This is the way increasing population will be handled. Busing will funnel any increases north of the pike and south of Rt 9 into these mega schools.
The walkable, neighborhood schools will be a memory.
That is the plan. Every school community in this central band and north of the pike and south of Rt 9 should rebel.
The Newton Teachers Association should rebel, as 4 classes per grade at 20, with 80 students can very easily in tight budget times become 3 grades at 27 each.Larger schools enable larger class sizes. Witness the experiences at Countryside and Bowen which have had the largest class sizes of any elementary school.
Large schools enable higher teacher loads.
Also, for the particular Zervas plan, the conservation enthusiasts in the city should rise up at such an attack on our wetlands.
Anyone concerned with fiscal prudence should rebel against the higher administrative costs and busing costs which the mega schools imply. The assistant principals for Bowen, Countryside, Memorial Spaulding, Angier, Cabot and Zervas will alone cost the city an additional $600K/year.
There are alternate plans which have great merit.
And believe me the population crush will continue.
Single family houses in Newton have recently sold at $80,000 above asking price and the demand pressure is evident in adjacent communities like Brookline, Needham and Natick.
The rental market in Newton last summer was the strongest it has been in a decade.
The approach where we keep our successful smaller school model is viable, could absorb that pressure and could cost much less than the current approach with:
– a smaller scale renovation and expansion at Zervas
– a 16th school placed at the DPW yard
– consolidation of the pre-K program which would release 100 student slots at Lincoln-Eliot
– an expansion of Williams to 400, adding 100 slots
This approach would add 700 or more student slots to the elementary capacity in a sound manner spread across the city.
The aldermen should insist on review of other ways than the current mega jugonaut.
I apologize to everyone else for sounding like a broken record but Geoff it still bugs the heck out of me that you still haven’t acknowledged or adequately explained or apologized for your part in this.
I agree that it’s not just about Zervas. It’s about fairness. It’s about process. It’s about accurate information and adequate communication. It’s about situating school buildings based not on their looks-good-on paper official “site size”, but also including the abutting open space and recreational lands that characterize the overall school site environment into the formula. It’s about schools originally planned and built in village centers vs. totally residential neighborhoods. Most of all, it’s about the best plan for the next 20 years and fairly apportioning the collective responsibilities and benefits across ALL involved school communities, including Upper Falls.
For the record: Zervas community members (both with current students and past) have never been reluctant to pull their system-wide load and/or responsibility. To characterize the people at the meeting from this long-suffering, “muddle through” community as a bunch of NIMBYs oblivious to the common good is blatantly inaccurate. For DECADES, Zervas parents have looked on the bright side and consoled themselves that the upside of not having a cafeteria or an auditorium and even having your library in a modular was compensated by the benefits of being a relatively smaller community. Now, they’re suddenly being told that bigger is better. All with not much time to digest the information before there’s no turning back.
So what does make Zervas different from Angier or Cabot?
Difference #1: Location. Location. Location. More than a century ago, neighborhood schools were wisely located as the anchors of the village centers. Zervas is not in a village center. It is an overflow school built for 250 kids during a baby boom in 1954. It is in a strictly residential neighborhood. There are big traffic problems with a current population that is 50% less, so 490 is far from what its original designers deemed feasible. As a matter of fairness, I would have never imagined that the school population for Zervas would be HIGHER than Angier and Cabot.
Difference #2: Adjacency to USABLE public recreational land. Angier, Cabot, Mason-Rice, Countryside and some other schools in Newton are favorably located with ample adjoining parklands/recreational space that compensate for their actual real site space. Here’s what I say to that: When kids are chasing a baseball or playing tag at M-R or Angier or Countryside, to name a few, they don’t realize that they are crossing a line from NPS property to Newton Parks & Rec. property. They just continue chasing and playing. At Zervas, when this happens, they run into a CHAINLINK FENCE that is there to protect them from running into a swamp.
The Cold Spring Park property adjoining Zervas might “look as good on paper” and “by the numbers” as other schools that abut parks, but it is not. The swamp cannot be played upon and can’t be drained because it is federally protected conservation land.
Difference #3: Equal shouldering of the load and relative impact to existing school culture and community. Why is it okay that, in a long range plan, Angier’s population only grows 10%, while Zervas’ grows 50%? Let’s talk about “what’s good for ALL of Newton.” There’s a serious question of both scale and shared community burden here. A 10% increase in population isn’t going to dramatically affect traffic in Waban Center.
According to Sandy Guryan, speaking at the meeting to Zervas parents, Newton turned down the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s (MSBA) original proposal to let Angier be a 526 student school. This stunned me because I had previously thought that the MSBA had capped the size at 460. Sandy Guryan clearly stated this in a public meeting. This means that in a climate of space crisis, we turned down the opportunity to add two additional classrooms that the MSBA was willing to help pay for. I heard it with my very own ears. This is a particularly hypocritical move since David Fleishman says that 500 student schools were just bully in Chappaqua and there’s no educational reason not to build them. Can we clarify? Again, why is it okay for Angier’s population to only go up 10% while Zervas goes up 50%? Why did we miss the opportunity to add two classrooms a mile away when we are in such a space crisis? Is Angier better represented and advocated for? It’s a notable coincidence that nobody uttered the “490” number about Zervas until they’d already had the wrap party on the plan for Angier.
Or, is it just that MSBA projects are protected from Newton’s historically bad building processes and fumbling community engagement? Let’s not forget that MSBA changed its rules once it met its worst case scenario: Newton North.
Difference #4: Not all locations are equal. The party line now is that all schools, regardless of the land they’re on, should house the same number of children, programs and easily schedulable 4-classes per grade. The arguments about having this flexibility of four classes per grade made by school officials is ham-handed and inconsistent (why isn’t this good for Angier?) It weighs fewer scheduling hassles for educators, sharing specialists, or having to come up with creative solutions on an equal level with recreational space for children.
Difference #5: “Can I sell you some swampland…?” Not reported by the Globe was that a number of abutters spoke at the Zervas meeting about how costly it was to expand or build up single family homes because of wetlands issues. These neighbors came to the meeting not to raise issues about traffic (though those were there, too), but to shout a huge warning based about potential cost. One homeowner spoke of how the City had required extremely costly pylons and foundation work when expanding a single family home. The representative from the architectural firm said that something like “every project has built-in contingencies.” In Newton, that means that they take money from other things, like police, roads and school programs when they get into a jam. We wouldn’t buy this land without fully knowing the real cost implications of building an 80,000 sq. foot facility on soggy ground or having an idea of the cost of the foundation work that the abutters described. Alternative sites were all excluded without this information being known. I wanted to hear the architect/builder say that they had done tests or something. They haven’t. Knowing this information could drive the decision to build at another location. Since ALL of Newton will pay for this school, and there are currently location alternatives (unlike NNHS where we just had to keep pouring money in because of unanticipated underground issues such as asbestos excavating the original Newton North)
And that’s what makes Zervas different.
This is the first I’ve heard of that proposal. Can anyone on the Angier Building Working Group speak to this?
For me, a school in upper falls is needed. Yes, we can renovate Zervas (and I don’t think doubling its capacity helps upper falls at all) so that we give the students and teachers a functional space. But Countryside, Zervas, Angier and Bowen all have Buffer Zones, because there is NO school in Upper Falls.
The school committee voted for no bus fees – whoopeeeee. Those students are still being disbursed to multiple schools. Depending on the year, your family starts school, depends on which elementary school you go to. And because NONE of these kids can walk to school, you can’t even ask a neighbor to pick up your kid! Because even though you live next door to a Countryside Family YOUR FAMILY attends Angier! Doesn’t help with carpools and reducing traffic.
Upper Falls needs a school of their own!
I’ve heard this several times talking to SC members and aldermen. If I remember correctly there were site issues that caused us to tell the MSBA we didn’t think it 525 was feasible. I’m sure someone from the SC committee can confirm this.
Now that it has been revealed that the override was not about improving Zervas, but rather to address system-wide capacity, I would like someone to explain why we are planning to spend $40,000,000 to increase capacity by 150 students when we could spend a comparable amount to build a new school in the Upper Falls where we would realize an increase of 450 students to the system; 3 times the 150 number for the same money.
As I understand the override complexities, only the first year of the tax increase (~$1,300,000) must be spent on fixing Zervas. After that the increased tax money goes into the general fund. I welcome someone correcting my statement. Debt exclusions work differently in that the money is assigned to the project for the life of the DE.
Now that the SC has decided to eliminate bus fees, the city could save actual busing expenses if the Upper Falls students did not need to take scenic rides through our city twice every day.
Patrick, you are on the right track!
And if we could keep the elementary schools below 450, we’d save $100K/year each time we did that. The current plan has an assistant principal deployed to each school above 450. Currently, Countryside, Bowen, Memorial-Spaulding. Soon to add Angier, Zervas and Cabot. Then Ward will come next. That’s $700K/year of administrative overhead. $500K of it on the southside, which would go a long way towards the debt service on a new school at the DPW yard Elliot St location.
As you say, 450 students there would make a big impact on the capacity problem, reduce admin costs and busing costs as well. Currently 177 students are bused from Upper Falls. Buses cost $65K/year so at a minimum, we ‘d save $200K/year.
The ripple effect of a DPW yard new school would lower school sizes at all our other nearby schools below 450. So can take $500K/year of admin overhead, add that the the bus savings and you’ve got $700K/year to go towards the new DPW yard new school.
We should leave no avenue unexplored.
As often is the case, it will be left to the Board of Aldermen to get this right.
Could anyone provide a credible cost-benefit analysis on the cost of building a 16th school, rather than rebuilding Zervas? Please include the costs of constructing, maintaining, servicing and staffing the two facilities.
As for the DPW relocation, please include the cost of acquiring the new parcel, and then any associated legal, construction, maintenance, servicing and staffing costs for this new location. Any cost analysis should also consider the possibility of an EPA impact analysis for the DPW location, as well.
Thanks.
Seriously?
Bill Brandel — Are you saying that cost analysis you’re describing hasn’t ever been done? No wonder people are annoyed
Hoss – Why would there be that detailed a cost analysis on a site that was rejected as unworkable? I suspect there isn’t a cost analysis for Cold Spring Park either.
As long as elementary school enrollment increases, overcrowding will be a problem, and a big problem at that. There’s simply no getting around that fact. The city waited too long to address this issue and now we need to get moving on it.
Ultimately, there isn’t one solution to this citywide problem – having too many students in too small a space in too many parts of the city will require a combination of solutions that will probably cause a lot of angst along the way. The use of modulars has been one part of the solution, the three new schools with increased capacity is a second solution, the use of buffer zones is a third, and redistricting is a fourth. But to say we can have schools with fewer than 450 students without using some combination, or all, of these ideas is just putting our collective heads in the sand.
If I may express an opinion as a fact, learning and teaching in an overcrowded school is awful. Simply awful.
@Bill: I would be interested in seeing that analysis as well.
Then again, many people on this and other threads have stated that the cost to bring Zervas up to code and capacity for its neighborhood needs and to build a new school on the DPW site would cost the same as rebuilding Zervas according to the School Committee’s plans. Surely, they are working off a concrete cost-benefit analysis?
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that was Bill’s point. This is an idea that came from a resident and has never been on the city radar screen.
Gail Spector — If a new Zervas broadens the range of Zervas a bit to include more parts of Upper Falls-proper, that is all good with me. (For those outside of Upper Falls, a great portion of homes are assigned to Countrywide which is practically in another state!) The suggestion by anyone that outsiders do the basics around City Hall planning is just in your face insulting.
@Hoss:
But isn’t that exactly what’s happening here? One “outsider” has taken his plan and convinced a bunch of people that it’s better than what the SC has been working on for years. And accordingly the city — rather, taxpayers — are supposed to spend money determining whether that plan works, even though an assessment by professionals has said it doesn’t. Couldn’t some “outsider” do the same thing in Lower Falls too? It’s not fair that those kids don’t have a community school.
When does it end? When it’s all fair? Because it’s never going to be.
The whole reason I got into local politics was the fiasco of NNHS. The eventual cost of that building not only made Newton a laughingstock across the state and the country, but has made it that much more difficult to cover the costs of the multitude of other needs our city faces – capital and otherwise.
So I am not in the least bit surprised that citizens are taking a “trust but verify” approach when it comes to the next multi-million dollar building to be constructed — particularly via operating override rather than debt exclusion.
“The most important political office is that of the private citizen.” Louis D. Brandeis
lol. I think that the Library should be made into a school. We can just toss all that stuff back in the branches. Now, if City Hall does not act on this idea, then I should be insulted?
Emily: Great. Then verify. Where are the numbers to support this concept? No serious person would float such a concept and claim that it is a superior alternative without having taken at least a SWAG at these rudimentary elements. And no serious public official should entertain it. Ideas are great. They are fun. But why on earth should anyone spend any precious cycles on this if the proponents have not done the homework to figure out whether it is even feasible?
Gail Spector — Setti Warren’s association with that one being insulting to my neighbors is what I don’t get. If there is no longer an association, that hasn’t been communicated
Now Bill….I’m actually in agreement with you I think on the school’s expansion, but to ask an ordinary citizen to come up with a hard underwriting analysis to support an idea seems a bit snarky to me. “What, you don’t have full facts and numbers to back up your position, even though you are not in city government or on the SC? Then begone, with your claptrap ideas with you….”
Perhaps the SC or others could weigh in on the DPW site.
And Karen, let’s also be honest with statistics. Using percentages to buttress your argument (50% expansion at Zervas vs 10% at Angier) seems equally faulty to me.
Zervas is going to get a major rehab. It is a very small school right now. In the course of the major rehab, it will be expanded. Better facilities, better capacity. Fair? Maybe not. Best for the city as a whole? Definitely.
Now if you want to argue to the SIZE of the expansion, let’s talk. 450 vs. 490? Let’s have THAT discussion. But if you want to have your cake and eat it too, and leave the overcrowding and larger schools to the rest of the villages, well….that doesn’t seem fair to me. Every school has similar arguments to remain small and special. But that shifts the unfairness to those other schools.
I’m not trying to appear unsympathetic, but the 450 student possibility seems well advertised. So again, what are you arguing? The jump to 450, or the jump from 450 to 490?
Are there numbers it support the current plan vs. other Newton-owned land? Or what it would really cost to build at Zervas vs. another site?
I thought the point of the feasibility study was to examine all possible ways of upgrading the condition and capacity of Zervas (auditorium, lunchroom, etc.). Somehow this got waylaid into a larger capacity recommendation and a refusal to go out of the district. The DPW site is not the only recommendation that has been made. And limiting the review to the DPW’s property on Elliot Street is not correct. The Public Building Department, Parks and Recreation, and the Fire Department also have substantial holdings in that vicinity. Could they accomodate some the Dpw functions that might be displaced from their current locations/ ?
And I have never seen a substantive response to the suggestion that the lower sections of the playground on Chestnut Street could be used for a school–only the perfunctory citation of Article 97’s requirement that the General Court approve such transfers of open space. The fact that a substantial amount of open space is being created in the form of the Upper Falls Greenway in the immediate vicinity of the Braceland Playground might make this one of the few cases in which an Article 97 permit might be granted. In any case, both of these sites deserve more than cursory review.
Fig: And I don’t entirely disagree with you. However… the most vocal proponent of this idea was on the SC for three terms and should have an idea of a.) whether this data exists, and b.) how to at least construct some sort of comparative analysis on the idea. It’s not rocket science or redacted information. The DPW part is a big ask, but then again, that is an idea that Geoff is advocating.
Brian: That’s some good info! So, would you propose that the 16th school advocates then drop this DPW element, and perhaps offer another parcel for discussion?
Brian Yates has it exactly correct. The feasibility study should be objectively looking at all these things. It should come up with options and clear trade-offs.
But one option has been chosen well ahead of the feasibility study concluding.
That means the feasibility study is window dressing.
Which is the point of all of the current unrest.
In my time on the SC, although there were various ‘updates’ to the facilities plan coming from the administration, the SC never had one thorough fully engaged discussion of all of the options for the next set of improvements in building condition and capacity, beyond Angier and Cabot.
You can examine the record and see that it is so.
Just like in 2008 a full SC discussion of a 16th school option was promised by the chair but never delivered.
It seems to me that the communities south of Rt 9 and north of the pike have been abandoned by the city masters in this rush to spend all of the override money on one mega project.
Perhaps someone can also explain how the FY15 NPS budget can be increasing by 3.7% when we should be constrained to 2.5%.
But that is more of the same problem.
No communication on why things are being planned the way they are.
…and he was bound and gagged and prevented from asking or speaking out about it until after his term ended! Oh and the PIGs forced him to film a pro-override video saying please vote yes because it will “add space at Zervas.” But now that he’s no longer on the SC he removed said video from YouTube and, boy, is he mad about how irresponsible our elected officials are. If only they would just do their jobs!
OK, I’m done. I promise.
Geoff: So, the DPW site really is not an option. And as far as a comparative analysis goes, you’ve got nothing to offer? I hope that everyone takes this into consideration the next time that you start throwing numbers around.
Bill, the school committee doesn’t even know if the Zervas project should be an addition or a complete rebuild. They have no idea if they can build whatever structure they might come up with on that unstable ground and how much it would cost to mitigate the problems they haven’t begun to analyze. They don’t know if they can buy those Beacon St properites. they don’t know how to handle the huge traffic problems that will result from putting another 170 kids in this school. They don’t know of a design that will solve all the headaches and they don’t know how much it will all cost. They plunked a guesstimate down on a spreadsheet out of thin air.
What they do know is they want to go ahead with this project.
You’re trying to use a “burden of proof” argument to discount other solutions: the DPW yard is “not an option” because no one can provide you with analysis that is satisfies your unreasonable request. But I could use the same false argument to remove the current Zervas rebuild as a viable option. There’s no proof of what it will cost, therefore can’t be an option.
All we are asking is for other options to be considered and not ruled out with hand waving, cursory evaluations meant only for show so they can move on to what they feel like doing.
Bill, a competent School Department should be able to provide a credible cost-benefit analysis on the cost of building a 16th school, rather than rebuilding Zervas. A competent School Department should have already completed the analysis. A competent organization performs contingency planning to avert big problems. Newton residents pay taxes for the School Department to do their collective job.
When the city’s population reached ~94,000 in the mid 1960’s, we had 23 elementary schools. Now we have a population of ~85,000 with 15 elementary schools. That is 8 less schools and only 9,000 less residents. The city’s age demographics have not changed that much to be a major factor. Our population is growing again; we can see our future if we look at our past.
The citizens of one village are not asking for 8 more schools. They just want the one that was taken from them decades ago. A school in their village would increase the system’s capacity quickly without requiring swing space costs and scheduling complexities. It would take much stress away from the 3 neighboring schools, and it would reduce the new transportation expenses the city has just created by reducing the bus fees for its students. For the SC and School Department not to be actively pursuing this option is the true insult with this project.
The SC and School Department are behaving in a way that does not support village elementary schools. We have already lost the village library concept. Our villages are becoming banks and nail salons. Maybe we should just eliminate all the marketing malarkey on the city website about being village centric. Let’s embrace the single city concept like Waltham, Watertown, Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville, Chappaqua …. That would solve so many of Newton’s problems.
The feasibility study work will reveal to us whether the proposed educational program fits on this site, and if so whether it works best as a rebuild/expansion or new. We certainly don’t know the answer – we haven’t done the analysis yet.
“Unstable ground!” is like shouting “The sky is falling!” when one first sees hail. Structural engineers like me know that the soil below this site represents a solvable design consideration no different than wind forces or the supporting of library stacks. We build structures on piles all the time, affordably, in spite of one Zervas speaker’s anecdote last week that piles are financial dealbreakers.
Traffic issues? Absolutely. We have work to do. Per above we don’t have proposed solutions to discuss because we just started our work.
We have reams of school construction cost data for elementary buildings in eastern MA built in the last few years and made available by the MSBA. This data allows us to estimate building cost/square foot, which we adjust based upon inflation escalators, expectations of site issues, other local conditions, and contingencies. This is how the design and construction industry estimates at the start of a project. As the design develops we keep pricing it and making design adjustments to stay at a target budget. A “guestimate… out of thin air”? Not at all.
As I’ve posted to this blog before, the DPW is not being seriously looked at because it is a very poor fit for the objectives we’ve been developing, refining, and articulating for a long time. If one looks at the DPW yard with the same critical eye cast onto the Zervas site, its limitations are obvious. Not impossible, and perhaps we will look this way again someday under different circumstances. But unfavorable, even if it appears a best-fit for a narrow set of questions being asked by some.
To Geoff’s question of why the school budget rose by more than 2.5% this year, remember that the override had money specifically targeted to cover teachers and short-term space for enrollment increases. The budget rose because we spent the money…just where we said we would when asking for it.
Geoff, where did you learn that 177 elementary students from UF ride the bus? I’ve never seen figures, but there are only 210 who live there and attend public school. In conversation NPS has said that only a small percentage of UF kids have bus passes and are bussed to school. Would you share your source? Thanks.
Brian, your suggestion regarding trading open space at Braceland for open space at the new Upper Falls Greenway is interesting, but doesn’t the MBTA retain ownership of the Greenway land, and isn’t there an intention to turn this land back into a rail corridor once the MBTA gets ahead of its perpetual budget crisis?
Patrick, the Zervas component of the override was about two things: fixing a broken and undersized building, while simultaneously adding seats to help with our growing citywide enrollment. If our question was “How shall we buy the most seats/dollar?” this would not be the answer. But for the objective phrased in the question “How can we fix Zervas and also add capacity at a very helpful location?” our current plan is an excellent answer. Regarding the $1.3 million annually of override money going to Zervas, Geoff’s recently posted financial accounting missed two key attributes: Starting now the money is being collected and banked for a couple of years even before we incur actual construction expenses, and second, the $1.3 million is part of a general override; thus it can grow by 2.5% annually. Over the life of the Zervas bond (30 years) all of this accumulation and cash flow will cover the cost of Zervas. There won’t be “extra money” until the bond is paid off.
Steve, the site issue that was behind our lowering the MSBA enrollment number down to 465 from 525 was size. We were dangerously close to needing to building to 4 stories with the 525 student count. Not only does Angier sit on a small plot, but we must circulate around the building, provide access to the adjacent church and public park, and provide adequate playspace and parking. We also remain committed to the Long Range Facilities Plan design cap of 500 students.
Karen, many of our largest schools, including Burr, Countryside, Memorial-Spaulding, and Bowen, are not found in the traditional Newton village centers you speak of. They are all in strictly residential neighborhoods and although they are putting students into spaces that are filled, these schools fit well within their neighborhoods. Regarding the notion that growing Angier by 10% and Zervas by 50% is not “equally sharing the load”, I’ll paraphrase for you what I recently heard from an Angier parent: “How come we’ve had to fit 100 more students than Zervas, right on top of a busy street, into one of the worst school buildings in the state, while those Zervas NIMBYs sit in their little school tucked back on a quiet street complaining that there is something horrible about our school culture?!” Sharing the load looks quite different depending upon one’s vantage point.
Geoff, you used to argue, strongly and convincingly while pulling examples from actual Newton data, that having 3 or 4 classes per grade gave us the most flexibility to create smaller, balanced classrooms. I am persuaded by your old arguments and puzzled by your new ones. And to your suggestion that Countryside has had the largest class sizes of any elementary school, essentially the opposite is shown to be true when looking at enrollment data – while having the highest school enrollment for many years, class size at Countryside has been lower than many schools, large and small. Bowen has large class sizes now, but this is attributable to rapid growth within a too-small building, and is not an inherent feature of a larger school.
Steve,
Thank you for all your thoughtful calm answers. In a conversation that has generated much heat and snarkiness, it is refreshing to see a School Committee member actively engaging in the conversation without defensiveness and with respectful, informative posts.
Thanks Steve F and Patrick for such rational comments.
Greg,
I have opposed mega schools from 2008 on consistently and I have always pushed for a rational assessment of the 16th school option. Here are some of my comments from SC meeting minutes:
6/23/2008:
“Geoff Epstein stated that he cannot support this plan [The Long Range Facilities Plan voted in 2008] because he feels there are major elements missing having to do with lack of full discussion and details around school size, new vs. renovation, and the 16th elementary school. He is not convinced that they have adequately answered the questions posed around
these issues by community members. …
Geoff Epstein replied that it is the ceiling of 500 that is troubling.”
There are many other data in the record to support my position favoring schools around 400.
I remain totally convinced that we are seeing the first moves in shifting Newton from its successful smaller school model (360-400) to a mega school model where we shall see school populations rise to 500 and beyond if the population surge keeps on coming.
We all condemn the era of school closings and we may well live to condemn the era of school super-sizing.
Also, as we see in the FY15 budget the school system is not able to keep to a 2.5% sustainable growth number. It is at 3.7%. That is trouble as it is a real sign of our inability to match our budget growth to our revenues. And this is one year after an $11.4M override.
When citizens vote YES on an override, they expect their money to be spent as wisely as possible. They want the most value the city can get for their hard earned dollars. They don’t want one year fixes and they don’t want to be told one story and then see another totally different story unfold.
That expectation is being rapidly eroded by the current approach to Zervas and the NPS FY15 budget.
There are many things the city should do, but the most important thing is to gain and keep the trust of its citizens by open, transparent, thoughtful, responsive government.
Believe me that trust is eroding now and will erode further as the mega school plan rolls out to hit the community. Zervas could easily be like Newton North.
And the redistricting which is planned around the central mega school corridor will have massive effects on the voting population.
If we approached our community in a normal inclusive manner as has been done in multiple neighboring communities, we would get much better outcomes, stretch our dollars much further and avoid highly divisive battles.
The comments from Brandel and Reibman show a deep lack of respect for anyone who is trying to engage in working our problems in a rational, constructive manner.
They are symptomatic of a real problem in new development and school building issues in Newton.
The conundrum for me is that these problems are very soluble and the citizenry should not be ignored or heckled for demanding better communications and better planning.
Steve Siegel,
The entire $4.5M operating override allocation for the schools was spent in the FY 14 budget.
See:
http://www3.newton.k12.ma.us/sites/default/files/users/44/FY14_Proposed_Supt_Budget_presentation%20powerpoint.pdf
at slide 13.
The FY 14 budget increase was 5% which amounted to $8.9M
2.5% was the sustainable piece. The additional 2.5% came from the $4.5M schools piece of the operating override.
So we are indeed not spending override money in this FY15 Budget. We already spend it in FY14.
So 1.2% of the 3.7% FY15 budget increase is unsustainable. The $ increase is $7M, so we just blew sustainability by more than $2M/year.
I got my 177 figure from presentations to the SC from the Upper Falls group. I’d be happy to see any figures you can come up with which show how much we spend on elementary school busing and how much could be saved if we built an elementary school at the DPW yard or if we don’t go the mega school route.
More busing information would be very helpful.
As long as the tax payers keep voting for overrides, our leaders will keep spending at an unsustainable rate. We have more debt now than ever before and this will continue until the next financial bust which will come and probably sooner than later.
Geoff Epstein — I pretty sure the way School Dept budgets work is that the City gives them the final total and the department fits programs around that allocation. This year’s total just happens to be 3.7% more than last year’s, presumably due to new growth over and above the 2.5%. Is this not correct?
So many claims, so much talk. Hard to know who to listen to.
Until now.
Steve Siegel’s the adult in the room. I’m buying what he’s selling.
Hoss,
Maybe Steve Siegel can clarify.
The 2.5% discipline was key to selling the override. My concern last year was that we spent the entire $4.5M allocation for the schools in FY15, leaving us with no override resources to apply in FY15.
The override appeared to be a 1 year fix.
Now that is confirmed as we have not been able to keep within the 2.5% for FY15.
New growth was not mentioned anywhere I know. Maybe it was 3.7%. But that would be very robust! One thing to look for would be whether the city budget grows by 3.7%. If it is less, the NPS budget will continue to gain more share of the city budget, which is unwise.
But we should not be spending up to new growth limits anyway, given the OPEB exposure we have and the other needs in the city.
If the city can spend past 2.5% in the NPS budget, that’s a signal to the NTA that maybe they don’t need to keep within the 2.5% contract discipline either.
In my view, keeping the NPS budget to 2.5% growth would have buttressed the SC position for 2.5% contract increases in the talks this year.
A new thread on the NPS budget would likely be the best way to go here.
But all of this is not rocket science. It’s basic arithmetic.
If the school committee were in love with the idea of building an Upper Falls school, they would come up with equally sensible sounding reasons for why it should be built there, how they will be able to mitigate all the potential issues, and do it all on budget. But the bottom line is, they’re just not that into it.
It really is a lot like relationships. When the love isn’t there, you notice all the problems, blemishes, the facade, the drab look. But oh when the flame is burning bright, mmm look at that sunshine, that potential, that smile that goes from north to south! And you think, if he would remove those moles along Beacon St, it’ll be perfect!
Geoff Epstein — I can see from the annual budget presentation that it’s presented as a bottom-up budgeting process, but in reality the final answer is a given before the process starts. That bottom up message is throughout this year’s budget book as well. But lookie here from page 141:
“The FY15 City allocation for the Newton Public Schools is based on a 3.7% increase. This 3.7% increase is due to an initial City allocation of 3.2% plus an additional 0.5% funding, or $1,000,000, from the 2013 Operating Budget Override to adjust for increased enrollment costs. The current multi-year forecast conservatively assumes a 3.3% budget increase for FY16, 3.1% for FY17, 3.0% for FY18 and 2.8% for FY19. This is based on recent revenue projections from the City of Newton.”
In reality, the experience over the last few years says that the budgeting process has built-in reserves such that they will come back with a surplus. Then the SC will at the last moment have a shopping spree along with gifts of cash to employees. 3.7% is probably 2.5% with some padding
I watched the budget discussions from March 17th. One item that concerned me was a budget request for a 50% increase from $320 million to $622 million. This seems outrageous. The new purchases are for computer replacements for the teaching staff. Apparently, their present computers are 5 years old and superior machines and will be resold. I’m not against computer replacements but at such a fast turnover for machines that work well. I could see a yearly incremental purchase but this 50% increase is simply wasteful.
“The conundrum for me is that these problems are very soluble and the citizenry should not be ignored or heckled for demanding better communications and better planning.”
Geoff: Your insult aside, my comments are largely addressed to you and Brian, who should well understand the actual, not imagined process of how efforts are done here in Newton. And yes, you should have and could have developed a plan had you hoped to be taken seriously.
Your opportunity window was the override. At that point, you could have done the homework and advocated an alternative plan (Steve Siegel cites the sources). Then, Brian Yates (or any other alderman) could have introduced and attempted to rally support for alternative option to be considered on the referendum. Neither of you did that. Instead, you both supported the override effort. And now, that opportunity window is closed.
I personally do not prefer a larger Zervas to a 16th school or vice versa. However, anyone who understands the process here should have known that with our limited choices, a larger Zervas was the most likely outcome. That is reality, and where we are at.
So, you can continue to flog this effort, cast aspersions, drag in new angles of agitation (OPEB? Really?). But it’s difficult to hear you now that the window is closed. While (warning: plot-killer) you failed on this, you can always look back and say that you helped get the override passed. That was an actual accomplishment.
I agree with Terry.
Steve, thank you for your continued commitment to engage the citizens on this blog. You and Margaret do provide useful and timely information. With Geoff no longer an SC member, it is concerning that other members of the SC, including the mayor and the superintendent, choose not to use Village14 as a communication medium to the general population. It has evolved into a viable, multi-issue, community electronic bulletin board thanks to Greg’s and others’ efforts.
If you were referring to me as the one Zervas speaker, who said last week that the piles are a financial deal breaker, that is incorrect. I failed in communicating to you that my concern was using more of the $40,000,000 for items that do not directly help educate our children. I have only heard two numbers regarding this project that I accept (since they came from Sandra Guryan). She has used the $40,000,000 as the project cost and ~$28,000,000 for constructing the building. It would help to know the breakout of the 30% of the project not assigned to building the structure. What is the current breakdown of the ~$12,000,000? Demolition? Site Preparation? Buying adjacent properties? Buses for swing space transportation? Additional administrator salaries (like the Angier project)? Inflation factor? Insurance for the project? Legitimate fudge factor? Other items? Right now that is all a mystery, and given the SD’s track record of miscommunicating, taxpayers are concerned.
I disagree with you using the “sky is falling” analogy in this situation. That is not like you to use hyperbole. First, Chicken Little is hit by an acorn, not a form of water. Second, there are real instances where the wetlands surrounding Zervas have negatively impacted home construction events. I can also tell you about the two construction vehicles that sank into the wetlands right behind Zervas when the exercise trail was being built. I know this site represents a solvable design consideration. I want to know at what cost. I would have expected this answer to be known before all other site options were eliminated.
Steve S says:
So you agree with my statement that the school committee doesn’t know what they’re building, what the issues will be, what’s feasible, etc. The traffic is a big problem. We agree.
My point in response to Bill Brandel’s argument (that we can rule out the DPW site due to lack of specificity regarding cost and feasibility) was simply that the same can be said about the Zervas site. There is nothing that says we can build a 490-student school, solve the parking, solve the traffic, have an adequate play space, and build a multi-story right next to wetlands for a given cost. That work has not been done. Which is fine, just don’t say that the same level of uncertainty rules out other sites.
This is pretty unspecific though. “limitations are obvious.” “unfavorable” “poor fit for objectives”. I don’t mean to be dismissive, but I have no idea what this means. Let me use one of Bill’s tricks: is there any industry standard cost benefit analyses that explore each issue in detail with possible solutions and associated itemized costs that the public could see?” Same for other sites.
Hoss,
You are correct in the quote from p.146 of the FY15 budget where it appears that $1M of the $4.5M override for the schools had been held in reserve and spent for FY 15.
However, the entire $4.5M was already spent in FY14.
See at p.3 of the FY14 budget book:
“Introduction: The School Committee asks the School Department to create a budget for FY14 that achieves the System Goals 2012-2015 focused on student achievement for all students, while at the same time dealing with unprecedented enrollment growth across the school system. This budget will require an operating override including $4.5 million in additional funding, set for a community vote on March 12, 2013 very shortly before the release of the Superintendent’s proposed budget. ”
Also see the superintendent’s power point presentation after the override passed at:
http://www3.newton.k12.ma.us/sites/default/files/users/44/FY14_Proposed_Supt_Budget_presentation%20powerpoint.pdf
At slide 13 it shows that the entire $4.5M allocation was spent in the FY14 budget.
So maybe Steve Siegel can clarify what happened here.
How can the override allocation be $4.5M in FY14 + $1M in FY15? That adds up to $5.5M.
You cannot spend $1M of the override twice.
That needs some explanation!
Bill,
The SC members were briefed privately at city hall once in the fall of 2012 as the override package was being finalized.
Setti lead out with 10 minutes on how important technology was and I was pretty happy that perhaps we might get technology fixed with the $1.5M/year it needed – a genuine recurring item suitable for an operating override.
It was clear from that briefing that some fixing was going to done at Zervas but no indication ofa $40M mega project.
I gave Setti positive feedback on the way things were shaping up.
But when the final override package was unveiled, technology had vanished but Zervas was still in there as a fixit project.
Also, the entire override was presented as one omnibus operating override rather than having the Angier, Cabot, Zervas and fire station projects split out as debt exclusions.
The MSBA forced that split out for Angier and Cabot. But we were stuck with the other capital projects still being in the operating override.
So because the operating override was so important to handle the added NPS staff costs and the need for modulars, both due to population increases, one had to go along with the bad practices piece on capital projects.
In hindsight, if the NO campaign had amped up the capital projects bad practice piece they might have squeeked enough extra votes to kill the override. The Zervas piece was certainly the weakest.
I would much prefer for the Zervas piece to have been swapped out for a technology piece. All the PTOs in the city would have been behind a technology funding fix and we might have won the override by a bigger margin. [We are still short $1.25M/year in technology funding.]
Then we could have addressed the needs of Zervas separately, much as we did for Day.
Then this whole process would have been much healthier.
And we would have had a technology piece in the override, which actually was aimed at improving our kids’ education!
That would have been a landmark achievement.
It’s a pity that the SC never had a public debate on the override package, examining all possibilities.
That would have lead to a better outcome all round.
Geoff, was there a quorum of the SC at this private briefing at City Hall? Because Open Meeting Law.
No. They broke it into non-quorum groups. But it could be regarded as a serial meeting, although there was no deliberation.
In a more open world, the override package could have been better discussed in an open SC meeting. Then we could have a had a back and forth about the components.
I still have to go back and read this whole thread when I have more time but I wanted to mention that it is not that you cannot build within 200 ft of conservation land. You must get approval from the Conservation Commission and follow certain procedures they put forth that go along with Mass DEP regulations. Often conditions include mitigation efforts and thus there could be mitigation costs that would not be necessary on a different type of site. Mason-Rice’s modulars were situated to avoid that zone since there is an area around the brook by the other side of the school that falls into this classifications.
It is always easy to attack the process when you don’t like the result. When Maureen Lemieux gave her override presentation to the board of aldermen, the aldermen were skeptical that Zervas could be renovated in place with students in the building, but I think everyone understood that the capacity would be enlarged to accommodate overcrowding in other schools, whether by renovating and adding to the existing school or demolishing and replacing it. Ald. Yates, in particular, was outspoken about his desire to include the possibility of a 16th school in the feasibility study but his words fell on mostly deaf ears. So it is not as though the issues raised here have never been openly discussed.
That said, the increase from 450 to 490 did come late in the game, and I can understand why Zervas parents might react negatively. I will wait to see what comes out of the feasibility study, but I am also concerned about the added costs for eminent domain takings and mitigation of environmental/wetlands issues. This is a 60 year old school so I have to assume there will be some asbestos that has to be removed and disposed of. It is on the edge of a restricted wetlands area, so I assume some mitigation will also be required. And using CPA funds to purchase houses that will be torn down to make space to build a larger school is not one of the purposes we passed the law for (i.e., historic preservation, affordable housing, open space/recreation), so I expect that will come out of the override as well. I also wonder where the students will go during renovation, and how much that will add to the cost of the project.
To be fair to people on both sides of the issue, I don’t think anyone reasonably disputes the desirability of neighborhood schools. The studies I have read have been somewhat inconclusive as to the impact of school size on various outcomes, including academic and social performance, behavior, “connectedness”, equity, cost, etc., but there is general agreement that 300-500 is the appropriate range for elementary school size. The closer we get to that upper limit, however, the more we ought to be concerned about possible adverse impacts. While some Countryside parents may be satisfied with a 500+ student school, I have heard from many who are not. Which is why I think the Mayor, SC and BOA have to be respectful, thoughtful and deliberate about the direction this project is headed. That includes being open to hearing the concerns from members of the community who express some trepidation about purposefully designing a 490 student school which could accommodate 500+ students if enrollment continues to grow, without marginalizing or deriding them (even when they happen to be a former member of the school committee).
Ted; Oh, please. Nobody wants an elementary school with 500 students in it. Or even 400. Given the choice, we would take a 250-student school, off the village square, with classroom size of 8 and a Starbucks across the street. But that is not reality. We have limited resources, space, and options. So, here we are.
And anyone familiar with the process knows that this decision is only “late in the game” in the sense that comes toward the end of a seven-year-long era. Aside from Bruce Henderson in a very informal fashion, when did the SC or BOA take action on a 16th school in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, or 2013? At the same time, everyone knew that enrollment was going up. Where, pray tell, did you think that those students were going when we had three school options in play?
Finally, it is not derisive to remind the former SC, the current aldermen or more importantly, the public, that the window of opportunity was in fact the override. This is a fact any practiced politician surely knows. Nobody spoke up then, when opportunity was rife, for good reason: There was no plan to advocate. That left you with the option of asking the Mayor and SC to explore a 16th school option. Nobody did that either. Instead, you, Geoff and Brian all voted to put the override out there, and supported it. After the fact is just that.
But, you are entirely correct that nobody likes the process when they don’t get their way.
Bill, I wonder if you’re just not getting enough ketchup.
Ted, I’d like to help.
Cute.
The vision of the School Committee is 15 large schools (500), surrounded by large buffer zones. The buffer zones may insure uniform class size but rule out any sense of neighborhood schools. When kids on the same block go to two different elementary schools, as happens all over Upper Falls, you don’t have neighborhood schools.
Is this the kind of city and school system we want? I guess I should have been paying attention, but I didn’t see this vision until just recently.
Forget about going green. The buffer zones and large schools insure there will be a lot of busing going on. Forget about a walkable city. A walkable city requires schools most kids can walk to.
@Maxine – Surprising as it may be, our central planners seem to care more about what their spreadsheets look like, rather than what our city looks like.
@Maxine, well said.
To answer Steve Siegel’s question far back in this lengthy threads, the ownership of the Greenway land by the MBTA should not preclude its use as Open Space for at least the 99 yyears of the lease to the city. Right now the T can’t afford to run the system it has. Even after this problem is resolved, the T is committed to several major capital projects that will both increase the system’s debt and its operating budget. They include the extension of the Green Line into Somerville and provision of commuter railroad service to New Bedford and Fall River. In short, there is no liklihood that the T will need to reclaim the land in the foreseeable future.
Its proximity to the proposed school site and the Charles River Pathway should make it an asset to the educational system, There is no substantive reason that the Greenway could not be used as a replacement for the land proposed for a school on the Braceland playground.
I’ll try to respond to the other questions in the thread later.
Brian, I am in favor of the Upper Falls having a neighborhood school like our other villages. My concern with the lower part of the UF plaground: is it in a flood plain that would allow for construction?