LETTER: Vote YES For The New School – We Need It

Hi Wilmington! Feel that heat? Imagine if this heat wave had hit just a few week ago at the end of June instead of all that rain and cold. Many of our homes and offices have proper cooling systems, but you know what buildings don’t? Our oldest school buildings like the Woburn St. and North Intermediate Schools.

That’s just one reason why a new school for the North side of town isn’t a want – it’s a NEED. When our North side elementary school kids go back to school this August, they won’t just be in classrooms that get way too hot to learn. They’ll also be in schools without accessibility for kids with disabilities and without sprinkler systems in case of fire.

They’ll be in schools where special education students learn in converted locker rooms. They’ll learn in converted closets and other spaces built more than half a century ago. Their teachers will have to deal with leaking roofs and rooms that just aren’t equipped to give our kids the education they deserve.

Of course, at least those students have their own school. Wildwood students – some of our smallest learners – are sent across town to West side schools each day. Meanwhile, we pay our specialist teachers for the time they drive school to school when, if they were in one building, they could use that time to teach kids.

Not everyone in Wilmington has school age kids or even kids in the first place, but here’s the thing: I think this is a need for us, too.

My daughter wouldn’t go to the new school on the North side of town – but I support it anyway, because this is the cheapest it will ever be for us to fix these schools. Too often, governments kick the can down the road until something goes wrong – a bridge fails or, like Wildwood, a school needs to close.

The prudent choice for taxpayers is to deal with these schools now before it gets even more expensive and give those students the building they deserve. Vote Yes at Special Town Meeting on Saturday, September 13th at 9 am and in the September 16th ballot election for all of us taxpayers and for the future of our town: our kids.

Sincerely,
Nick Golden