Now that a minority of Amherst voters and Town Meeting members have rejected $34 million in state funds to rebuild our elementary schools, we face spending close to $2 million dollars on a series of very expensive patches for our schools, including a boiler for Wildwood and a roof for Fort River.
Putting Band-Aids on these two school buildings is throwing good money after bad. These expensive repairs don’t address the serious fundamental failures in both buildings – classrooms without walls or windows, full access for students with disabilities, persistent structural and environmental problems, and more. In fact, even a new boiler at Wildwood won’t remedy the building’s fluctuating temperatures – that would require an entirely new HVAC system.
Our town cannot tolerate another decade or more with many of our students, teachers and staff confined to noisy, windowless classrooms. We must find a way to get our students and teachers into classrooms with fresh air, natural light, and the quieter settings everyone needs to do their best work.
Amherst also needs schools where special education students are not bused away from their siblings in order to access the services they require and deserve. Nor should we bus children from the lower end of the socioeconomic scale away from their neighbors.
We must not pretend that a new boiler or a new roof represent forward momentum. In fact, these outlays are glaring evidence of our failure to reckon with the reality we’ve been facing for many years.
Some say we should patch up the buildings for now and seek another round of state funding to address larger issues. The truth is, we can’t wait that long. It is unrealistic to expect that after years of working closely with the MSBA to create an acceptable plan, and ultimately rejecting $34 million for which other towns are clamoring, we will ever get state funding again.
The process that would have given us new schools in 2020 began in 2007. Even if we somehow succeeded in securing another round of matching funds from the state, the very best-case scenario would not give us a new elementary school until 2024. The earliest a second building could be completed would be 2032.
By the time both schools were completed, our current first graders would be old enough to have children of their own. Waiting for state funding that may never be offered will simply condemn another generation of Amherst children and teachers to buildings that hinder education in a multitude of ways. We must consider another plan to finance new schools as soon as possible.
Having served on the Joint Capital Planning Committee for six years, I am well aware of our limited resources and the many competing demands on it. Our first step must be to spend our money as wisely as possible and not use it to distract us from the real needs in both school buildings.
One necessary expenditure that must precede any effort to build new schools is a feasibility study for the Fort River site. The superintendent recently requested $700,000 to do a full assessment. However, the Finance Committee, concerned about such a large expenditure, persuaded the superintendent to request a smaller, cheaper study that focuses only on environmental issues. That diminished study would be another example of a short-term, patchwork approach and would not produce adequate information to move forward with a building project. I urge the town to do a complete feasibility study.
At the same time, the community should ask the town manager, the Select Board, the Finance Committee, and Town Meeting to reevaluate our town’s capital improvement plan and begin to strategize on how best to fund new schools in the absence of $34 million in state aid. New schools must remain a priority for Amherst.
We are a town that values education and social justice as guiding principles. But today we are sending our youngest learners into buildings that are woefully inadequate for meeting their educational needs. Meanwhile, our teachers are wondering how we could condemn them to do their important work in these buildings for another decade.
New schools would address all of these issues. We can’t sit on the sidelines and hope something works out. We need to begin planning immediately.
Katherine Appy is a Town Meeting member from Precinct 9 and former chairwoman of the Amherst School Committee.
