Considering all the ups and downs that Templeton has endured as part of its ongoing saga to build a new elementary school, it’s amazing that the Massachusetts School Building Authority has held firm this long in its willingness to reimburse the school’s construction at a rate of 60 percent.
Considering all the ups and downs that Templeton has endured as part of its ongoing saga to build a new elementary school, it’s amazing that the Massachusetts School Building Authority has held firm this long in its willingness to reimburse the school’s construction at a rate of 60 percent.
Board of Selectman Chairman Chris Stewart put the length of the effort into context: “They began talking about this elementary school when my kids were in elementary school, and they are graduating next year.”
For four of those years, Dr. Roseli Weiss carried the “new school” baton as the Narragansett superintendent, having taken it from Dr. Stephen Hemman, who had initially seemed to achieve some progress on that front before he retired in 2008. With Dr. Weiss having recently moved on to Middleborough as that district’s superintendent, Ruth Miller this month took the helm, seeking to eventually get a shovel into the ground to begin building a new facility for the town’s students.
The project has encountered many obstacles, with several sites eyed for the school having not panned out. Now, the current site of Templeton Center Elementary School has become the focus, and has been described by project backers as a last hope to keep the building authority’s support — and its current reimbursement rate.
Obtaining needed support to pursue the Templeton Center site, however, is proving to be a challenge.
“My hope is that the selectmen will all sign this (letter) and allow for it to go forward, as the rest of this (process to begin building) is many votes down the road,” noted Selectman Virginia Wilder.
Miller has ramped up the urgency level regarding the project in recent weeks, pointing to Monday’s meeting of the selectmen — at which discussion of the issue, and of the needed letter of support from the board, is set to take place — as the point at which the town must proceed or “absolutely lose the project.”
To Stewart, though, this recent push to consider the Templeton Center site could easily be explained.
“The changing of the guard of the school committee and the superintendent has changed their perspective of the sites,” said Stewart. “Dr. Weiss didn’t want to go to Templeton Center, with it probably not the best place to put it, but now they realize that’s pretty much all they have. ”
Even if that’s the case, Stewart is still banking on the MSBA to provide town and school officials with some degree of flexibility.
“The MSBA is kind of getting fed up with us changing our minds,” he said. “Even so, it might be wishful thinking, but we can all be optimists and hope something will come up. We are still looking into alternatives. I think the MSBA has been more than patient.”
Wilder also voiced a similar wish for some flexibility, adding, “We would like to get some minor assurance that if we see another piece of property that’s better for the kids or for the town, that we could change it, if the people in the town are interested.”
Her rationale was tied to the town’s recent openness to building the new school on a smaller parcel of land.
“The architects and project manager were first looking at 18 to 20 acres, but now they need five or six acres, and there are pieces of property available in the five to six acre range (that weren’t previously considered), so I would like to pursue it along that line.”
Some of that flexibility, Wilder cited, was necessary because of what she perceived as a sudden deadline being thrust on town officials.
“I didn’t like how this was dumped on the selectmen’s lap. It’s now on the selectmen’s hands, and I take a little deference to that,” she said. ” I will encourage the other selectmen to sign it, though, and I would hope that it can be unanimous.”
Stewart, though, took issue with the perception that it became a rushed matter.
“We knew the deadline was coming up, so we weren’t surprised by it,” he said. “Dr. Weiss first discussed it about three months ago, and we had asked for an extension, when we were looking at the land off (Route 2′s) exit 20.”
What could potentially complicate matters further in getting site approval is how some residents on Tuesday chose to grasp at straws when complaining to selectmen about potential traffic issues they envisioned if a new school was built.
Upon hearing those concerns, one might envision a school being opened for 1,000 or more students, and that suddenly 10-year-old students were being gifted their own driver’s licenses and getting behind the wheel. But in knowing the site already houses an elementary school, with typical traffic made up of parents’ and teachers’ cars, to go with buses, and a police station and its usual traffic, such concerns seem largely exaggerated.
Especially when considering the district this year dealt with consolidating two schools into one, sending East Templeton Elementary students to Baldwinville Elementary, and dealt considerably well with the traffic impact.
Even with Baldwinville Elementary situated on a one-way street, and its student body having grown from 171 students in 2011 to 244 in 2012, no one would ever mistake it for trying to escape Fenway Park and its gridlock following a Red Sox game.
And by consolidating the combined Baldwinville Elementary with students from Templeton Center, it would likely add up to less than 350 students.
A school of that size is nothing new for Templeton, as the middle school had 445 students this year, and the high school 528.
Wilder wasn’t so willing to dismiss the concerns, though.
“You can construct a traffic pattern a certain way, and there are a lot of things that can be done, but we have to listen to the concerns of the people,” she said.
Knowing that aging schools aren’t solely a Templeton problem, it’s hard to imagine the MSBA sitting on a pile of reimbursement money for long if the town fails to make a positive decision on the site Monday, as districts that failed to make the earlier cut will then be chomping at the bit for another crack at the funds.
Simply reapplying also has its downsides, noted Carrie Koziol, chairman for the Templeton Elementary School Building Committee, as current school building projects are being reimbursed at a rate almost half that previously agreed for Templeton. While residents might dream for a return of the 80 to 90 percent reimbursement rate that existed during the 1990s, building committee member William Clabaugh noted that history has shown the rates continue to shrink, to where the longer Templeton holds off, the bigger the town’s bill will be when it does get around to building a new school.
