Tags: Ward 5 Alderman John Rice and Ward 5 School Committee member Steve Siegel have co-written a column in today’s Newton TAB, explaining why they both favor expanding Zervas Elementary School, as opposed to adding a new school elsewhere.
A survey referenced in the June 25 Newton TAB expressed a preference for smaller schools closer to people’s homes. We’ve thought hard about this strategy. Many alternate sites were assessed for both the Angier and Zervas schools, but none were found to be feasible for a school project. We confirmed that Newton is a built-out city with almost no excess land available for development. Creating sites for more schools would be expensive. It would require assembling 3- to 4-acre parcels through open market purchases, eminent domain takings, or repurposing of other city land currently used for parks, recreation, or other operations. We have concluded that the logistical and financial trade-offs required to create multiple smaller schools across the city isn’t the best strategy given our current enrollment projections and resources.
Although I live close to Zervas, this is not an issue I’ve followed closely perhaps because I don’t have any elementary school age children.
But Rice and Siegel are thoughtful guys with great integrity and credibility. On this issue, I assume they’re staking out a position that’s not necessarily popular among many of their Ward 5 constituents and might even inspire someone to challenge them during the next election.
My inclination is to believe John and Steve and support this. Anyone care to explain why we should do otherwise?
And a proposal can be written to support the other side also. AND the Zervas project will be using eminent domain, including having a woman move who have lived in HER house for 40+ years.
I bought my house in 1998, before kids. And since then, I have had a couple of kids, and since then the school department has issued bus fees! And great, this year, they have waived the elementary school bus fees – whooppeee. My older kid attends middle school, and I still have to pay for him. Yes, I bought my house that is NOT within walking distance of ANY school, however I bought it and there were no bus fees. Those were covered in my real estate taxes, and I paid my taxes, and watched lots of kids board the busses to the elementary school, the middle school and the high school.
And now, I will pay the bus fees, because I believe in bussing more than I do in individual families driving their children. But what REALLY gets me is that the fee to park a car at South, is less than the fee for taking the bus. Great, punish my family yet again. . . . push it into my face that I can not afford to purchase and insure a car for my high school kid! Thanks Newton.
But seriously, schools within walking distance is important, and I know that someone could write a great article about how this could be done with funding and Newton lands. We, the city, are choosing to build large schools that will require bussing.
It is not our only choice. It is the choice that has been made, but it was not the only choice.
@NewtonMom: My point was not that it was a well-crafted “article,” it’s that it was written by two people that I have a lot of confidence in. If they tell me, the city looked into locations and considered the financial implications, I’m leaning towards believing them.
If someone is able to step forward with a financially viable alternative model, then let’s see them step forward and do so. But you can’t fund a municipality and school system based on the preferences expressed in an online poll.
Why would anybody trust anything the School Committee says? I’ve had SC members lie to my face, and lie to me on this blog.
They’ve been historically inaccurate in their enrollment projections.
Their solutions to most population problems have been unacceptable, [crazy redistricting plans and sub-par modulars].
They’ve been fiscally irresponsible, [failing to secure or even discuss adequate reimbursement for METCO].
They’ve guided our school system from the top nationally, to middle of the pack locally, [and fail to even acknowledge that fact].
They’ve whacked our students with additional fees nearly every chance they get.
Lastly, they are oblivious to the epidemic of stress that’s gripped our high schools, [clearly evident in the results of NPS stress tests]. They’ve failed to take substantive action to reduce that stress level among high school students, despite 3 teen suicides this year. In my opinion, more than anything else, this last point proves they are out of touch, devoid of creative solutions, and derelict in their responsibility.
I agree with Mike Striar’s statement about the School Committee.
I agree with NewtonMom and I’d take it a step further to say that kids should not be allowed to drive to school. Period.
Talk about sending the absolute wrong message to kids!
1) Destroy the environment and act antisocially by eschewing mass transit
2) Put their own lives and others’ at risk – yesterday, the Globe had a statistic that 30% of 16-year-olds get into serious accidents (although I’d be astonished if it’s really that high)
3) Perpetuate shallow materialism and social stratification based on wealth and property ownership
So true Michael. The last thing we need in Newton is a repeat of scenes like this! (Could be a good revenue generator however)
The column states ” if our projections prove low, we can certainly revisit the notion of creating additional schools at some future date; our investments now do not preclude this.”
For a piece entitled “No good sites for new schools in Newton”, that is a curious statement. Will the city suddenly become less built out in 10+ years? The presumption is that if we need a new school then it will be due to increased enrollment, implying more population in general. If the population increases, how would we have any better chance of finding a site for a new school. Might we invade and annex Needham?
Greg – the people who should step forward with an alternative plan are the ones who are elected and hired to make plans. In fact, they have been begged for such alternatives, but no work has been done on this.
The alternative sites listed on the Zervas project were done in the most perfunctory way to check a box on the MSBA guidelines. For example, Braceland Park was eliminated purely because of “legal restrictions”, but those restrictions can easily be removed.
“But you can’t fund a municipality and school system based on the preferences expressed in an online poll.”
First, no one is suggesting we do that. Second, calling it an online poll is a bit misleading. We have been going door to door with leaflets which have the questionaire on one side and instructions for the online version on the flip side. People either mail them in, have taken them in person or have accessed the poll online. We have collected street names to make sure we get even coverage of neighborhoods. “Online poll” is what you find on a news web site, filled out by whoever happens to visit the site and click the survey. Ours is an effort to canvass entire neighborhoods of Newton evenly. It is the best effort to date find out what residents think about this project and school building goals in general. It’s a very time consuming effort but something we are doing to help connect residents with their city government.
@Greg – After scrolling to your video, I’d diverted my attention while a targeted ad for a schmaltzy Greg Kinnear movie was playing, and then I came back to “Raw Footage: Fight breaks out in Ukrainian Parliament.” How will that increase revenue?
Oh, you must have been talking about this girl in the miniature Beamer. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talkin’ ’bout!
I was under the impression that in the years since we’d graduated from high school, young people had become more enlightened and that they had less desire for automobiles…but your video shows that things have just gotten worse. I’m shocked!
PS How do I make this video stop???
@Newton Mom. I don’t always agree with you, but there’s something really out of whack if kids do pay more to take the bus than park a car at South. In fact, I’d give every student free bus rides to middle and senior high schools and eliminate parking altogether. It would be good for the environment and for the health of students, as well. I’d supplement that with walkable elementary and secondary schools wherever possible. And with elementary students, I’d eliminate bus fees altogether. And I’m certain I would go down to a crashing defeat if I were foolish enough to run for either the Board or School Committee.
It is quite telling that the majority of the discussion here centers on a collection of issues completely tangential to the central mission of the school system: educating our kids. Misters Siegel and Rice (among others) put forth a number of arguments concerning advantages that accrue as a result of a larger school. Perhaps people like “NewtonMom” and “Michael” have no coherent response to these points. Perhaps they do not understand them. Thus, they and others like them focus on the ancillary issue of how one gets to and from the facility thereby detracting from any sort of valuable public discussion. Their total lack of perspective would be laughable if it were not so sad. Layering some sort of morality play (the school department’s job is to make sure kids see cars as the devil’s form of transport) over what is really a simple question of policy (get ’em in, get ’em out safely and with acceptable impact on the neighborhood) is completely misguided.
Really it is simple: larger school provides for better programming which leads to a better education. Smaller schools mean redundant costs and fewer resources for programming. The fixation with walking to school is like something out of the 1950s.
Mr. Striar: while I generally agree with your assessment of our elected officials, in this case, I think you are off. Siegel and Rice are honest straight shooters. What you see is what you get with no external agenda. Now, you may not agree with their analysis, but to paint these two guys as mendacious is way off base here.
Mr. Feinstein: you poll was and is an unscientific sham which should be vigorously ignored by anyone in a position to impact this project. The questions were leading and designed to elucidate from the community the response you and your group most desired. If you feel so strongly about the project, you should have run for School Committee. Asking a bunch of people lacking any depth of knowledge about the complexities of this project what they “feel” about a collection of issues that are non-subvstantive is a meaningless exercise.
Elmo– I have a lot of respect for John Rice. I have no respect for Steve Siegel or any of the other SC members, some of whom [including Siegel] I have previously supported. Their failure to do everything in their power to reduce stress levels among high school students, is the single worst case of dereliction of duty among elected officials I can ever remember. I hope I’m wrong, but I truly believe their inaction will contribute to other tragedies like we saw last year. Should that happen, I can assure you, the finger of guilt will be pointed right at them.
Mr. Striar, you are conflating two issues. Mr. Siegel may have limited credibility when it comes to the phycology of the Newton teen. As a structural engineer, he is more than a little credible to be weighing in on Zervas. The former has nothing to do with the latter.
Dear “Elmo,”
You tickle me with your kind words! I missed the memo that this was a lofty discussion about “educating our kids.” Could you email it to me?
I’ll raise you one in your holier-than-thou game-
People like “Elmo” miss the bigger issue of creating a sustainable planet with socially-responsible citizens. His total lack of perspective would be laughable if it were not so sad!”
Anyway, I guess this discussion is nominally about Zervas. But I notice that some people seize on any discussion about education to start harping about METCO, for example.
So I have a question: in my hometown of Needham, the only people I can ever recall complaining about METCO were the racist parents of one of my classmates who moved up from Texas. And I don’t think anybody in Needham ever complains about it today. Maybe I’m wrong though. Is METCO reimbursement really a serious topic in Newton? I’m new to town so I honestly have no idea.
During my 6 years on the SC, there was no evidence that larger schools lead to better programming. Quite the contrary.
The consensus of the principals at the time was that smaller schools – around 400 – worked best for many reasons. But that important advice is being disregarded.
Steve and John are upright citizens but they are simply defending the decisions which have been made.
Nothing about the Zervas project makes sense to me.
But the project will move forward inexorably just like Newton North did.
We have not learned much.
The mega expansion of Zervas will prove to be an expensive mistake of the same financial caliber as Newton North and the same design caliber as the Brown/Oak Hill co-location.
For in the area of school facilities, Newton remains a leader in poor decision making when the MSBA is not strongly in the picture.
Maybe one day the science labs at Newton South will be brought up to par, but not while resources are pissed away as we are doing with Zervas.
Not to be too skeptical here, but as a disinterested party who doesn’t even know (or care) where Zervas is, I get the impression that one’s position on this issue is determined by one’s proximity to existing and/or hypothetical schools, and that the arguments are being customized to improve the chances of one’s property being located near a school that will be perceived as “high-quality” and thus having a positive impact on property values.
Michael – Years ago I lived in a town out past 128 where anyone complaining that the additional Metco students were causing a major expense (in that case, requiring an extra classroom per grade) were accused of being racist. I can’t swear that none of them were, but the ones I knew were sincerely concerned about cuts in school services caused by the extra expense of the Metco students.
And I completely agree with those who are appalled that it’s cheaper to park at the high school than take the bus. That’s wrong on so many levels, most of which have already been mentioned, including the safety hazards of having additional teen drivers on the road.
@Elmo– I conflate two issues all the time. It gets tricky when I get to four…
Here’s the deal, Elmo. This School Committee has lost my confidence. The fact that they’ve been able to turn a previously vocal supporter into one of their most bitter critics should be alarming to you, unless you question the validity of the issues I raise. In particular, I believe the School Committee and Mayor Warren, are failing to recognize an issue [systemic stress in our schools] that may have been a contributing factor in three tragedies involving high school students last year.
Our high school students are experiencing epidemic levels of stress, and that’s clearly evidenced by a survey conducted at both North and South. With that in mind, and knowing that stress is frequently a contributing factor in depression and teen suicide, would it not be reasonable to expect the SC to do everything in its power to reduce stress among teen students?
Sleep deprivation is a known cause of stress, and stress contributes to depression. Teens are particularly vulnerable to the ill effects of sleep deprivation, and many studies confirm the negative impacts on both mental and physical health. Surrounding school systems have reacted to these studies and facts by changing the starting time of high school to let kids sleep a little later in the morning. Meanwhile, despite many assurances from SC members [right here on V-14] that they were in agreement with me on this issue, Newton still starts high school at 7:20am.
Frankly, I don’t like being lied to. But that’s not my issue. My issue is that the Newton School Committee is derelict in their duty by failing to correct the one thing that would reduce stress levels at our high schools across the board.
Anyone is free to chastise me for hijacking another thread. I don’t care. I only care about raising awareness of this issue.
@mgwa – Thanks for explaining. In Needham the thinking always seemed to be that METCO was beneficial for the community and local students, and that as part of the metropolitan area there was a certain responsibility to promote social, racial, and economic integration and give back to Boston, which provided jobs for probably 75% of Needhamites. Maybe it was just a token response to suburban guilt over the busing crisis, but I always thought it worked pretty well.
It’s unfortunate that the state only reimburses $5,000 per pupil. My preference would be that all real estate tax collection and educational disbursements take place at the state level, so that per-pupil reimbursement wouldn’t be an issue.
@Mike Striar – +1 on delaying the opening time of school. That’s an important issue so I hope you persevere.
I agree, that Zervas has the potential to be the next Newton North disaster. First, Zervas does need to be renovated/rebuilt, but why bump it BEFORE Cabot, which also needs a major renovation/knock down. We had a plan for Angier, Cabot then Zervas, and now the city is pushing the new Zervas design down everyone’s throat.
Is the the right time to rebuild Zervas?
Is it the right DESIGN?
I believe Zervas needs to be high on the priorities list, however, I don’t like the idea of supersizing a school because there is no other space and we need it. Did the City of Newton hire a firm to study what the needs are? Who is suggesting this order and design?
And Bob Burke, it irks me every day to see kids drive their own cars to school, while families struggle to pay the large fees instituted by The City of Newton. And, as someone who is not shy, I landed up calling the transportation department one year, when my husband lost his job, and we still had to pay the second half of the bus fee, and the representative told me that there was no way she could waive the second half of the fee for both of my elementary school kids. Three months later, I spoke to Sandy G. who was mortified what happened to me. I called at my family’s most vulnerable moment and got punched. Now, I hope things have changed. But making the call, that I could not afford the bus fee, was just horrible. But, the bus should be free. Lets encourage kids to be be green and take the bus. We live in a City that provides multiple busses home after school from South/Oak Hill/Brown, which I think is great. Really provides service and kids are able to be more independent in a safe way.
@NewtonMom: The bus fee and parking fee for South were set to the same value by the SC this past spring.
And Zervas has not bumped Cabot. Cabot is proceeding steadily on its own timeline, dictated by the Mass School Building Assistance program which is contributing to Cabot’s funding. Zervas is a Newton-financed project and because the design timeline is controlled locally we can make it happen faster than Cabot.
@Steve Feinstein: Not curious at all. We are a built out city and have little to no readily available land suitable for a new school site. But if we decide that in the face of enrollment increases we want to undertake the financial and political challenges of assembling a brand new 4-acre school site via (1) land purchase, or (2) trying to convince the state and our citizens to take parkland out of commission to build a school, well, we can do that.
As you and I have discussed many times before, each issue we face comes with trade-offs and we look at how to sort them out through our own lens. For example you have suggested that we take back the Hyde School by eminent domain so we can reopen it as a school. This is not a trade-off I would make as I am not persuaded of its educational and operational value, and I would not be willing to deal with the cost or political fallout.
Braceland not only has legal restrictions but it is arguably a poor site to place a relocated Zervas for many other reasons. Perhaps you will advocate that it should be the site of a 16th elementary school – but that’s not what the matrix you refer to was about, it was about whether there was a better site for a relocated Zervas. Do you think we should move Zervas to Braceland?
So after decades of frustration that our city has been neglecting infrastructure needs — and squeezing in modular classrooms because we were incapable of addressing enrollment demands — folks are complaining that things are moving too fast?
I do not feel anything is being “pushed down” my throat so please don’t say “everyone’s.”
Steve S, no I wouldn’t move Zervas. I would do a renovation to address the issues listed in the LRFP (electrical, plumbing, mechanical and interiors). There is no need to change the class sizes because they are already adequately sized – according to the SC’s own report. In fact I would go back to the original June 2007 LRFP and implement a form of option 3 which was to build a 16th elementary school at a new site. (All three options were for a 16th school; the updated LRFP in Dec 2008 removed it.) If enrollment drops in the future, Zervas could be repurposed as, say, an early education facility for when Newton implements a pre-school program.
Steve, I think you are overplaying the difficulty of building on parkland. It’s appropriate for legal council to highlight the obstacles, but I don’t believe it would be so hard to get permission, and I guarantee you that Upper Falls residents won’t object!
My post about taking back the Hyde was in the form of a challenge question, i.e. why couldn’t we do that? “I’m new to NPS issues, so someone tell me why this is a bad idea.”, I wrote. In a perfect world, the Hyde would be a school. But I think we would need to do that in conjunction with a residential/public housing development in Newton Highlands so we could relocate the Hyde residents, and then buy back the Old Hyde at about $8 million. It’s technically doable, but politically Newton doesn’t have the strength or vision to pull something like that off. And we don’t seem to have the collaboration between the SC and housing/community development that is needed to get something like that accomplished.
Anyway, even though I live in the Highlands, my first choice for a new school from a city-wide perspective would be in Upper Falls. Braceland Park seems like a fine location, except for the fact that it includes a flood zone near the river.
I don’t want to sound like pollyanna, but I have tremendous respect for John Rice and Steve Siegel, but also for Bruce Henderson, Steve Feinstein and those on the other side of this issue. I know them all and consider all of them friends. All of them deserve respect and none of them deserve to be personally attacked. These are first class citizens who put in more hard work than I could imagine doing at my age for what they think is right for this City and for it’s villages. Of that, I have no doubt and I thank them for all that they do.
That said, I don’t know what problem there is in putting forth differences on controversial issues and debating them vigorously. My major concern is not whose right or wrong, but the suggestion by some that the findings of experts and professionals should prevail over what people in affected or neglected neighborhoods are advocating because those people who live in those neighborhoods can’t see the “big picture”. There’s often truth to that, but those who supposedly can’t see the big picture often have a deep and intuitive feeling about what the impacts of a project will be because they live in the streets and neighborhoods that will be affected. And yes, a lot of scientific researchers who study the tension between belief and knowledge agree that intuition has a critical leveling effect.
So, there’s been a lot of back and forth in recent blog postings about whether ordinary citizens have the smarts and expertise to shape major development projects that have been drafted by planners, engineers, developers, architects, educational professionals, and other experts that are recognized as such by the governments that hire them. Some citizen opposition to proven professional and scientific evidence is clearly destructive, but quite often the opposition has the intuition to perceive things of value and stability the experts haven’t perceived.
I’ve just finished “The Greatest Show on Earth”, David Dawkin’s meticulous discussion and defense of scientific evolution. Near the end, he examines tragic polling data over the past 20 years which shows that almost half the American people believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old and that evolution is at worst a hoax, and at best an unproven hypothesis. This is what belief over knowledge can produce and it’s extremely detrimental to the creation of a scientifically educated population.
On the other hand, I lived through the destruction of Boston’s West End during the late 50’s and in this instance it was the professionals cited above that put belief before knowledge. They declared the whole neighborhood a slum without really knowing the people who lived there or the way the community interacted. I felt some of this community strength and cohesion only because my uncle who was a ward healer in the Democratic organization took me into that neighborhood on 3 or 4 occasion when I was a small kid. I saw the vibrancy, humor and cohesion of an ethnically polyglot community and the inside of several row house homes that were small palaces. The experts and developers never felt it, or wanted to feel it. And there are many other examples I could point to where what the lofty visions of planners and developers didn’t materialize in the final product.
Nothing about Zervas has the consequences of what happened to the West End or the teaching of evolution, but I think the principles are somewhat the same. There are two sides to this discussion and a set of competing values that should invite controversy, heated discussion with a healthy dose of intuition thrown in. Let the debate continue.
@Steve S: I don’t know of anyone who has been thinking about moving Zervas to another location — except members of the Zervas Bldg Comm/DRC and the consultants hired to analyze alternative sites for that particular idea and generate that matrix. I think the idea of moving Zervas was and is a red herring. The alternative that I have heard people talking about is doing a renovation/modest expansion of Zervas at its current site and building a 16th school to serve a neighborhood that does not have one.
“Michael,” A few kids walking to school won’t fix the planet. Taking a few cars off the road for a ten minute trip each morning in Newton will not alter climate change. All such policies would do is inconvenience people who pay taxes and are looking for services. In Newton at least, such windmill tiliing is the norm. It’s all about making a statement as opposed to well, actually doing something.
The place where the school system can best inculcate social responsibility is in the science (why and how physically and chemically is the climate changing), history (what are the social reasons for and implications of global climate change, what are the policy options for addressing the problem, what are the economic implications), and english (how do we best express in writing and orally ways of addressing the problem) classes. Such classes are best taught in brand spanking new facilities like the one being proposed for Zervas. The useless discussion surrounding how one gets to and from school provides a needless distraction from the real heart of the matter which is what is the best space for teaching our kids what they need to know to live in the world and be successful in the 21st century. But hey, that’s what the web is: a platform for minimally informed people to sour nonsense.
Also your perception about the geographical correlation regarding who lines up where on the issue is wrong (not surprising since you do not know the community,). There are many people whose property values stand to increase who are quite opposed to the project. These folks want small walkable schools. They use the threat of traffic as a bogeyman to prevent development and seem happy with a Zervas facility where there is no cafeteria, the HVAC system is a disaster, the library is in an old modular, and up until recently special ed was done in a space the size of a closet. But hey, at least the planet will be saved with all those walkers.
Elmo, your pomposity makes me smile!
OK, go ahead and renovate Zervas to your heart’s content! I’m sure it’s not a question of people wanting the best possible school for their own neighborhood. It’s a question of…hang on, let me re-read your post…it’s a question of…ummm, I’ll get back to you on that one.
In my view, the Newton Tab column should have been written BEFORE the override vote, at least the justification about increasing the Zervas enrollment to close to 500. It is my understanding that an enrollment in that ballpark had been “on the table” for a number of years, but I could find no mention of a target enrollment in any of the override-associated documents posted by the city or in the city-sponsored presentation that I attended. Then, the voters could have weighed in on this admittedly controversial issue with relevant knowledge.
What Greg said about Zervas. I’m not part of the “everyone”.
What NewtonMom said about the bus fee waiver, a situation that’s completely unacceptable.
What Bob said about HS parking fees vs bus fees for elementary children. The parking fee for HS students should be equivalent to a busing fee. It’s simply an issue of equity.
Thanks to all being so articulate!
Jason, I agree with you. I believe it was intentional to omit the 500 number (excuse me, the 490 student and 24 classroom numbers) from the presentations and general discussions so as not to raise the public’s concern. I am not an architect nor developer so I incorrectly naively assumed the 80,000 sf “expanded” school meant we would replace the 5 modulars and get back our lost auditorium, library, art room, SPED room, an adequate computer room and maybe even a have a cafeteria. The SC also was successful in avoiding any talk of a 16th school as an option for the Upper Falls community. It would be interesting to know how the vote would have gone between fixing Zervas or finding a 16th school; maybe even using the facilities now being used by the CATS Academy in the heart of Newton.
I hope the citizens ask a lot more detailed questions when the administration proposes the next override. The SC has brought this aura of mistrust upon themselves.
Patrick , I was hoping that someone from the SC or BOA would respond to your comment. In particular, I’m interested in their explanation of why such materially important information as enrollment capacity (at least a best estimate) did not seem to be included in the override-related documents and presentations (whereas square footage, arguably less meaningful to the average voter, was included).
Jason, do not expect a response on V14 from the BOA except from maybe Ted HM, Emily Norton and maybe Brian Yates or from the SC except from Steve Siegel and maybe Margaret Albright. And do not hold your breath expecting a reply from the mayor. Maybe Bill Brandel will speak for him.
The answer to your question is simple. If the specific details had been released and fully explained in the voter information documents, then the public concern being expressed now would have started before the vote. And that would have jeopardized passage of the override, which also included all the other operating expenditures. I voted for the Angier and Cabot debt exclusions. I did not vote for the general override. I sensed something was not right about including so many topics in one vote; I feared something was being slipped pass the voters without their full understanding of the details. Multiple people, even current Zervas parents, have said they would not have voted for the general override if they had known the full extent of the Zervas renovation and expansion.
Right after the override passed, the school department somehow found money to give their employees a free month from their medical premiums (another form of a monetary bonus). That along with a general feeling of new found money, like a winning lottery ticket, filled the halls of our public buildings. I would have much preferred a feeling of obligation to spend the money wisely and frugally since some of that money is (was) mine.