AMHERST — A day after Town Meeting on Monday rejected a plan that would have constructed two new elementary schools, Superintendent Michael Morris visited a dozen teachers at Wildwood and Fort River to listen to their concerns about the condition of both buildings — but also to let them know there are no quick and easy fixes.
“Absent a revote at Town Meeting, this project dies,” Morris said, referring to the plan to create two Grade 2-to-6 schools in a $67.2 million building at the Wildwood site, and turn Crocker Farm into an early childhood education center. “That means we can start reapplying with statements of interest that we have been submitting since 2007.”
After months of planning on the project, which received a pledge of $34 million from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) in September and support from voters last week, the Town Meeting defeat means that within 10 days Morris will need to send a letter to the quasi-public agency explaining what happened. He said he will tell the agency that elected representatives expressed concerns about the size of the building, about whether the colocated schools would function separately in perpetuity and the grade reconfiguration.
While the authority’s policy states that it could continue to set aside funds for the proposed project, “a failed vote likely will result in the school district being required to submit a new statement of interest to the MSBA and await an invitation from the MSBA to enter the eligibility period phase of the MSBA’s process.”
There is also no opportunity to adjust the plans to conform to concepts described by Town Meeting members. “The concerns expressed weren’t about tweaking a plan,” Morris said.
Monday’s action brings to an end a process that began publicly in October 2015, when then Superintendent Maria Geryk recommended pursuing two Grade 2-to-6 schools on the same site, each with 375 students, after the district was accepted into the MSBA funding process for one elementary school only.
Despite surveys of teachers and parents that illustrated this was not the most popular plan, with a K-6, 670-student dual school receiving more support, the School Committee voted 4-1 to pursue the concept. Members argued that it would improve equity by ending the practice of busing some children from South Amherst neighborhoods to other schools to equalize the socioeconomic makeup, and at the same time giving more children access to preschool.
“I feel really devastated for teachers and students of Amherst,” said School Committee Chairwoman Katherine Appy. “Most are now stuck in wholly inadequate buildings with no end in sight and no realistic plan B.”
But School Committee member Vira Douangmany Cage, who was the lone dissenter when the plans were approved, said she understood that aspects would compromise the educational value and experience of being in Amherst.
“I think we all agree our school buildings need to get addressed,” Douangmany Cage said. “It’s just the path to getting there was what the people disagreed with.”
And even though Morris said it could take several years to get a project approved again, there is uncertainty in that timeline.
“I have full confidence the MSBA understands our need and arguments for a new building,” Douangmany Cage said.
Town Meeting member Maria Kopicki of Precinct 8, a lead member of the Save Amherst’s Small Schools group that opposed the project, told Town Meeting that a dual K-6 school would have won support. She also argued that renovating the existing schools would be a less expensive option that would ensure preserving the neighborhood schools.
Morris said solving the problems at Wildwood and Fort River are challenging, because both have issues with noise distractions caused by the open classroom learning environment, and have bathrooms and hallways that don’t conform to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“Unfortunately, there’s no inexpensive and easy way to fix open classrooms,” Morris said.
Yet the only teacher to address Town Meeting, Mangala Jagadeesh, who teaches second grade at Wildwood, expressed more worry about the grade reconfiguration, telling representatives that children who would arrive in her classroom after being in the early childhood education center at Crocker Farm might have adjustment issues.
In fact, additional transitions were cited by several Town Meeting members as a concern, with children facing a disruption after just three years at Crocker.
Morris said these fears are unfounded and that there are numerous different configurations throughout the state. “The more people learned about it, the more people excited about it,” Morris said.
This applies to Amadee Meyer, the mother of a Fort River first-grader and a doctoral student in school psychology at the University of Massachusetts.
“The more I learned about the vision for reconfiguration, the more convinced I became that this is an ideal solution for the district,” Meyer said. “I believed, and still believe, that the more residents know about the proposal, the more clear the decision becomes.”
The reconfiguration would have meant an opportunity to have more children attend preschool, and would have reduced the issue of transporting special-needs students to both Wildwood, for the Intensive Learning Center, and Fort River for the Building Blocks and AIMS programs.
The project stirred passions on both sides, with a group supporting the plan called Building Opportunity for Learning and Diversity collecting $3,676, according to financial reports filed with the town clerk. The largest donation, at $250, was from former School Committee member Rick Hood, with Meyer providing $200. Others donated $100 or less.
Hood said there were a range of reasons he supported the project, including allowing grade-specific programs to be taught in one building instead of three, eliminating the need for frequent redistricting, no longer dividing children living in the same neighborhood to ensure socioeconomic equity, and promoting equity.
“Note (that) equity does not just mean for disadvantaged kids but for all kids,” Hood said. “Right now, one building might have an advanced program that other buildings might not. If it is in one building, all kids can access it.”
SASS collected $7,441, with $5,000 coming from Sylvia Brandt, of South East Street, $425 from Town Meeting member Laura Quilter and $200 apiece from parents Eve Vogel and Kurt Wise.
Brandt, a professor of econometrics and environmental economics at UMass, said she provided the funding because she felt a responsibility to put her research out for public knowledge.
“The other side needed to be heard and good science needs to get out there,” Brandt said.
With her research focusing on the effects of pollution, including on children, Brandt said school officials should have consulted with the Environmental Protection Agency or other scientists while developing the plans.
She was dismayed that even when concerns were brought up, school officials pressed on without listening to feedback.
“I was really saddened when they insisted on bringing the community in, then shut the community out,” Brandt said, “My hope is the demonstrated concern last night will change the way committees do business.”
But Morris said officials did extensive outreach to people living in apartments, and this effort to contact diverse demographics was demonstrated in the support the project received at the polls last week.
Appy said she is concerned that the Town Meeting defeat came even though the project was approved by residents.
“I am also dismayed that a body charged with being representative of our town took it upon themselves to overturn a popular vote,” Appy said.
In fact, in a letter to the Gazette, Hood calls for Town Meeting to be abolished, in part because of its action.
Whether that happens may be determined by the continued process of the Charter Commission, which was created last spring and by September will unveil a proposal for changing town government.
Commission Chairman Andrew Churchill, who previously served on the Amherst School Committee, said Tuesday that he’s already heard from several frustrated with the Town Meeting action, which could set back the process of getting a new school built by several years.
The commission, he said, is evaluating how residents participate in government, how officials are held accountable for actions and their responsibility to the public.
“I didn’t get the sense there was much concern among Town Meeting members about being held accountable for that decision,” Churchill said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com
