School Committee Candidates Respond to Center School Problems

This week on Patch we wanted to help Hopkinton voters get to know what makes the School Committee candidates tick and where they stand on various issues. To do this we asked each candidate to respond to four questions from Tuesday, May 15 through Friday, May 18 we will feature all of the candidates' responses to one question.

All four candidates are running for two open positions in the election.

The second question focused on what they see as a solution to the problems at the Center School that have been plaguing the town for years.

2.) Last year Hopkinton voters turned down a proposed solution to the aging Center School. The current school committee has formed a building committee to see what the town wants as a solution. What do you think is the best solution to meet the needs for elementary students in Hopkinton?

Jean Bertschmann: At this point, it would be premature to identify a solution to the challenges presented by Center or Elmwood Schools. There are many more steps to the process which need to be accomplished, and vetted with the community. With my School Committee colleagues, I have developed a project timeline for a potential Center School project (available on the district website) which outlines the entire process with the MSBA, and identifies ongoing work to ensure that we are ‘MSBA ready’ when we receive an invitation to re-enter their project pipeline. The timeline identifies all of the steps in each of the eight MSBA project modules, and identifies the community communications process the School Committee will undertake for each step along that path. Using feedback data from the community forums, community survey, and results of the Criteria Working Group, the School Committee will have a more firm understanding of the community priorities for this project. Ultimately, the residents will select the best solution at Town Meeting.

Jon Graziano: I don’t, at this point, have a specific resolution for Center School but I believe the process we use to find an answer is critical if we want to find a solution that the entire town can support. The process needs to include open and frequent communication with the community at every stage to ensure that all of the community’s questions and concerns are answered. Additionally, information should be made available on all options that are researched to clearly show not only the merits of the solution that will be brought before the town, but also to show why others were not pursued.  

Frank Sivo: I know that one solution is wrong for our town; districting.  Last year, 72% of those voting sent the School Committee a very strong message, Hopkinton is opposed to a districted model. The key question is how the School Committee got this issue so wrong. It appears the School Committee was so strong in its opinion to drive a districted model (and longer-grade spans), that it did not properly understand the sentiment of its most important constituency; the community. Some of the candidates running now seem to have “gotten religion” of districting, but are they still dogmatic about something else; longer grade spans? For me, the proposed benefits of longer grade spans are reputably dismissed by the only scientifically conducted study on the subject. Between 2004-06, a $500,000 Dept. of Education grant funded a research study by Ross Rubenstein and his research partners. The research, in particular, studied the impact of longer grade span configuration on educational outcomes. Rubenstein et al, studying more than 700 schools in the New York City school system, concluded that there is no benefit to any particular elementary grade school configuration. This does not mean that longer grade spans should not be considered as we move forward in Hopkinton. Rather a decision on elementary schools in Hopkinton should be based on a process that focuses on merits and costs, not didactic statements about the benefits of longer grade spans. If the best solution includes longer grade spans, then I will support it, and the community will understand exactly why I do.

Given an obvious solution is not known, and given the need for a deliberate and objective process to define one, I am pleased to be serving on the Criteria Working Group (CWG). This group’s charter is to develop working criteria to be used as the Elementary building school process moves forward. In this group, I have worked hard to make sure all solutions (without districting) including Center School renovation are thoughtfully and creatively considered.

Ultimately, the process, using the CWG criteria, will highlight the preferred solution. One of the main reasons I am running for School Committee is to assure this decision-making process, and others like it, are objective, value-focused, and merit-based.

Frank D'Urso: There are immediate repairs that must be made to Center and Elmwood Schools, it is a shame that some of these issues used as an argument to build a new school have not been addressed, for almost TWO YEARS.

As far as educating ELEMENTARY school students we have more than enough space, the space issue arose when they ran the Full Day Kindergarten pilot program. It is my understanding that we’ll need two or three

Classrooms to be able to deliver a successful tuition based full day kindergarten program. I have brought up the possibility of modern modular units to be added behind Center School.  These efficient portable buildings use quality materials and will be able to be installed in a matter of weeks. Harvard University uses modern modular buildings for their Daycare center. In the longer term, if and when we need to build a new school there is plenty of land that the town owns behind Center School.