Somebody gave me an interesting article in this week's Emptyprize (well, relatively speaking). It seems the U.S. Military has come to the aid of the Community School by supplying the labor needed to replace flooring, paint walls and generally spruce up the modular buildings behind the Wing which are currently used to house the pre-school program. The Community School only had to provide the materials (paint, laminated flooring, etc.) that were used.
Let me stress that the current "structure" is essentially a group of double-wide trailers that was once used to house students before the High School was opened. The word obsolete does not even begin to describe them. There is no question the work was needed.
There had previously been a serious effort to build a new, permanent structure to house the program -- until some arrogant SOB's on the School Committee pointed out the Emperor was bare-assed and that there was no was to cost-justify incurring additional debt service given the fact that there was (or would likely be) room in existing buildings -- and that the Town already couldn't afford to maintain the buildings it had. Given the current financial position of the Community School (as documented by the recent audit) that would certainly appear to have been a bullet dodged!
Over the past two years, alternate existing spaces have been looked at at both the high school and at the other K-8's. There was even discussion of a small modular addition to the High School which would allow students planning to major in education, some early childhood education experience.
What happened?
I asked a School Committee member when it was decided to spend capital dollars on re-doing the trailers -- that member knew nothing about it.
How much did this reno work cost ? Where was it budgeted? As I recall the Community School has been running in the negative for the past two years and was projected to go negative again this year. How did they find funding to buy the supplies?
More importantly, why wasn't there any public discussion about a decision to renovate an asset that everybody has agreed is way past its useful life?
Again, the building certainly needed the work, and we're all appreciative of the military intervention in our pre-school program -- my only concern is how are we paying for our share --- and why was there no public discussion of it?
Could we have used the military labor to renovate existing school spaces to move the pre-school program into one of the existing buildings -- create some efficiencies and save some money on maintenance and utilities?
Could we have used the military labor to repair the track or some other District project?
Did anybody on the School Committee (particularly those so concerned about "oversight" !) even ask the questions?
6 comments:
The School Committee (pardon me, 4 of the members) has one mission. They have yet to say why, but all their energy is going into getting rid of one of the most effective Superintendents I have ever known. They are not interested in anything positive, anything good for the district even though some of them still have kids here. How is that? Bob, can you share this blog more publicly on Facebook or Twitter I wonder? I know from conversations at the hockey rink and basketball courts that people are outraged, but they feel helpless. The current SC/interviewing committee will not listen to reason, common sense or their constituents. I will leave this anonymous and maybe they will.
4:11 --- I am not a Facebook user (my wife says that's because nobody would be my friend!) BUT, there is a link below each post to Facebook and Twitter and there's a link on the right side to recommend the Blog on Facebook.
The only way we can begin to fix this mess is to get more people involved -- there needs to be NEW faces at Public Forum and there needs to be new qualified candidates running for seats this Spring.
Bob are you saying that Barbara and Sherry are not qualified candidates for school commitee
Barbara is not running again
Let me get this straight...according to Mike Baker and Bud who both spoke at the last Town Meeting: without a massive override and tax increase there's no money in the capital accounts to paint the transfer station or put new doors on the Senior Center or replace windows at the Police Station or improve the air quality in the Fire Station but the Community School, which has run deficits for at least 3 years, has money for capital repairs and improvenments on temporary buildings that are well past their useful lives?
Bob why no response to my question about Sherry qualifications
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