AMHERST — Before the Select Board Monday takes a position on an article that will allow Town Meeting to reconsider a project to build co-located elementary schools, several teachers will be joining parents at Town Hall to show their support.
The 6 p.m. rally, in which three teachers are expected to offer comments on why they endorse the project, will mark the completion of a petition in which a majority of elementary school teachers and staff are asking Town Meeting to vote in favor of the $67.2 million project. The measure would create two, 375-student elementary schools at the Wildwood School site on Strong Street.
The event will be staged on the steps of Town Hall a little more than an hour prior to the Select Board’s discussion on the article that will appear on the Jan. 30 Town Meeting warrant. Town Meeting rejected the project in November.
Johanna Neumann, a Fort River parent, said Friday that the petition is an indication that teachers have become more active in telling the community about the need to replace both Wildwood and Fort River schools.
“Since Town Meeting voted down the article on the first attempt, that was a wake-up call for many teachers,” Neumann said.
In fact, following the failed vote, teachers joined parents and children, many holding signs, to greet and express displeasure toward Town Meeting members as they arrived for a session a week after the failed vote.
The Proposition 2 ½ debt-exclusion for the project was narrowly approved by a majority of voters Nov. 8, but didn’t achieve the two-thirds majority at Town Meeting to authorize borrowing, with 108 in favor and 106 against.
Critics of the plan, which would also close Fort River and turn Crocker Farm into an early childhood center, say that nothing has changed since the vote and no new information has been presented that would favor eliminating the town’s traditional neighborhood schools and replacing them with a “mega school.”
“We hope that we can soon begin to work together toward the common goal of improving our schools in a way that many more people can support,” said Maria Kopicki, a Town Meeting member representing Precinct 8.
Those who support the project, though, say new information is clear from the Massachusetts School Building Authority, which has assured $34 million to cover more than half the cost of the new school building. MSBA has informed school and town officials that a new application expressing interest in a project can be submitted, but that this may not be immediately acted on.
Those expected to make brief statements at the rally are Linda Prothers, a veteran preschool teacher who currently teaches at Crocker Farm, Sara Hickman, a fourth-grade teacher at Wildwood, and Nicole Singer, a Fort River art teacher.
Neumann said though the Select Board is likely to support the warrant article, the petition is aimed at Town Meeting members who may doubt teachers are in favor of the plan.
“There are a lot of targets for it, but primarily Town Meeting,” Neumann said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
