AMHERST – A project that would create two, 375-student schools in one building at the Wildwood School site cleared another hurdle Wednesday when Town Meeting rejected proposed spending to examine whether it was feasible to instead renovate two existing elementary schools.
The petition article asked Town Meeting to spend $40,000 in free cash to hire a consultant to determine if Wildwood and Fort River schools could both be modernized, instead of being merged into a new building
But Article 38 was turned down, even though petitioner Maria Kopicki of Precinct 8 argued that it would help develop a plan at a lower cost than the current $65 million projection, which would include $34 million from the Massachusetts School Building Authority and more than $30 million from the town.
School Committee Chairwoman Katherine Appy said in an email Thursday that the vote shows Town Meeting representatives understand that estimates school officials received were detailed and complete, as required by the state agency.
“I think (Wednesday) night’s vote means that a majority of Town Meeting members understand that the MSBA process is a thorough and strictly determined one and, that the cost estimates for all the options were careful and were within the average range for MSBA projects of this kind and scope,” Appy wrote.
The community group known as Save Amherst’s Small Schools has advocated against the idea of having two schools on one site, criticizing it as the “mega school” and the possibility the town would lose its neighborhood schools.
Kopicki said a smaller-scale, renovation-only approach would be more timely and cost efficient.
During the discussion at Town Meeting, Appy, who also serves on the School Building Committee, said the grade reconfiguration that would result, with the two schools at the Wildwood site having grades 2 through 6 and Crocker Farm as the site of preschool through first grade classes, was done not for financial reasons, but for the needs of the students and ensuring more equitable experiences for students and staff. This configuration will remove barriers and provide better access to learning for students of all abilities and socioeconomic backgrounds, she said.
Wildwood and Fort River, which are each more than 40 years old, have issues with the open-classroom configurations called quads, which the school administration has said leads to distracted students and undesirable education environments. This poor condition was what got Wildwood accepted into the state’s school infrastructure needs program after several applications.
Nicola Usher of Precinct 1 said Town Meeting paying for the feasibility study would have set a dangerous precedent in overturning a decision made by elected representatives. She observed that residents already made the decision to support the grade reconfiguration and the building project at March’s town election in which supporters of the reconfiguration plan were elected to the School Committee, while an opponent was defeated.
Laura Quilter of Precinct 9 , who co-sponsored the article, said her concern is that the project will need to get two-thirds support for a potential Proposition 2 ½ debt-exclusion override of more than $30 million to pay for it, and then a simple majority when it gets to a townwide ballot vote.
“Article 38 would have provided some fall-back measures in case the overall plan falls, so I would have preferred to see it pass,” Quilter said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
