WILMINGTON, MA — At last week’s Wilmington School Committee meeting, Superintendent Dr. Glenn Brand shared his thoughts on the school district’s facility needs, including (1) a call to action on addressing the Wildwood Early Childhood Center and (2) a suggested approach to applying to the state for reimbursement of building project costs.
Wildwood Early Childhood Center Is The Priority
In addition to relocating the Student Support Services Department, Dr. Brand believes the district’s most pressing building priority is the Wildwood Early Childhood Center, Wilmington’d oldest school building, built in 1955.
“It is the school in the most dire need of attention,” said Brand. “Any future building project — whether renovation, new construction, etc. — will take many years to realize and bring online, and this school facility simply does not have this type of time left.”
“We’re not talking about something that’s going to happen next year — this is a long ways out,” emphasized Brand. “That’s the sense of urgency — collectively — we should have to get some movement happening at the town level. Anything that’s going to impact our current situation is so many years out, it’s hard to contemplate.”
“Envisioning that it’s at least five years before anything moves forward, can the Wildwood sustain students that long?,” asked School Committee member Jo Newhouse.
“The Wildwood is certainly functioning and it’s a healthy place right now for students and staff. There’s been some questions around that, but with the information we know, it’s certainly a safe building,” responded Brand. “But how long can it hang on and how long do its systems bump along? And if there’s a system failure tomorrow, and it can’t be fixed, we would have to come up with a plan. The larger pressing question is how long is too long? When is enough enough? I don’t have that answer, but I do think we need to start thinking about a plan now.”
“It’s tough to see the clear way forward as there’s so many moving pieces,” added School Committee member David Ragsdale. “It seems pretty clear, however, that we have to develop some kind of consensus in the town about moving forward with some kind of replacement for Wildwood.”
Brand is recommending that the School Committee, at the upcoming Facilities Master Plan Committee Meeting on September 30, 2019, push for the creation of a working group to begin examining alternatives for the Wildwood in the near-term future. That meeting, perhaps not coincidentally, is being held in the Wildwood’s cafeteria and is open to the public.
State Reimbursement For School Building Projects
“If there is interest by the Town to consider pursuing a partnership with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) for any future financial contribution to future school building or renovation, then I would suggest advocating for submitting respective statements of interest for ALL of our school facilities that represent the most pressing or urgent needs at the elementary level,” wrote Brand in a memo he summarized to the Committee. “This will take time and effort to complete these documents; however, in recent conversations with MSBA, and a review of the respective information online, it is important for a district to share information with their organization pertaining to ALL school facilities that are in need of significant repair or renovation.”
Brand outlined several facts about MSBA funding that support his recommendation:
- The ‘Window” of applications only opens once per calendar year for districts and communities to submit statements of interest. These documents do require considerable work to complete and the authorization of the School Committee and town leaders to submit in the spring.
- Even if a community is invited into the building program, their guidelines generally result, on average, from 5 to 7 years before a new school facility is completed.
- If the district was only to submit an application for the Wildwood and no other school facility, and if Wilmington was invited to the program, then that would be the only school in which consideration could be given and that would mean that the district would be obligated to only renovated/rebuild the current Wildwood School.
- MSBA does not provide financial support for PreK physical spaces, so an application for only the Wildwood as currently exists could be quite limited.
Jo Newhouse would like the committee and the public to be given updated estimated costs for different building scenarios in order to make a better informed decision. While she supports the Facilities Master Plan Committee’s recommendation of consolidating Wilmington’s eight schools into six schools, she’s unsure — at this point and time — what voters would be willing to support, especially without cost comparisons.
The plan currently calls for the closure of the Wildwood and Boutwell, renovating/expanding the Shawsheen & Woburn Street to become PreK-Grade 2 schools, and renovating/expanding the North & West to become Grades 3-5 schools. The Wildwood and Boutwell schools would then be vacated and the town would decide how to repurpose the land.
“There’s probably not going to be much appetite, even in the medium-term, for more than one new school building construction project because the town has a lot of other building needs,” acknowledged David Ragsdale. “I think we can get one building up in the high priority list, but pushing more than one ahead of a senior center, substation, and town hall/school administration building is [unlikely]. Beyond that, we’re probably looking at expansion of other school buildings if we’re going to follow the consolidation plan, which I think makes sense.”
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