Brookline Eyes Jewish Private School To Ease District Crowding

BROOKLINE, MA — As enrollment decreases at the Maimonides School near the corner of Boylston and Clark Road, the school is considering renting the space at one of its buildings. This comes as the town is looking at increased enrollment across the district and is looking for short term space solutions after Brookline's years long effort to build a ninth elementary school to address rising enrollment met roadblocks recently.

The possibility was floated to the school district this May to start leasing space at the private Jewish school. The school said it was consolidating into one building and would lease another with 16 classrooms and administrative offices - to the town this fall.

The school committee has held several closed-door executive session meetings on the rental of additional space, citing space available at the Maimonides School to use for short to medium term use for K-8 grade spans, BEEP, and/ or for town staff. Given its close proximity - less than a mile - to Pierce elementary school district officials are focused on considering using it to address overcrowding there in the short run. The school, where enrollment is edging close to 900 students, already uses space for its middle schoolers across the street.

The building the school is leasing was formerly a pre-school space, making it most suited for smaller students. With that in mind, district officials considered at the space for the youngest students at Pierce.

Superintendent Andrew Bott has said Pierce's overcrowding makes it a top priority when it comes to finding space solutions. If the district signs a lease, it will be done with the intent of using the space beginning fall 2019.

Last month, the school district held listening sessions for Pierce School community meeting members. But residents have concerns.

Parents and staff say they are concerned about the logistics of multi-site drop-offs/pick-ups, transportation arrangements, after school care. And then there is the question of moving and adjusting classrooms between now and September. In Newton where that district is renovating elementary schools, too, it had school staff start moving right after the end of school to ensure they had enough time.

Pierce school community members say they'd feel better if they had more time, say until the beginning of fall 2020 to prepare to revamp things. But it's unclear if the district will still be able to lease the building then.

"Before you possibly decide to split Pierce families up for this fall, please walk between the two sites and take a tired 5 year old with you -- see how long it takes, then imagine it's a rainy/snowy evening, and you don't have a car," said Town Meeting member and mother Mariah Nobrega in an email to School Committee and Select Board officials.

How much rentals would cost? That's not clear.

This past year there were 865 students enrolled at Pierce, of those 99 were in Kindergarten. Pierce was originally built for 567 students with three classrooms per grade.

There was a vote scheduled for the July 9 School Committee workshop meeting on the matter, but it's not clear if anything was decided. A lease would have to be approved by the Select Board.

Patch reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).