Charlie Breitrose
The Phillips School will have classrooms renovated to help relieve overcrowding at other schools in town.
Monday night, Superintendent Jean Fitzgerald shared a plan to renovate rooms at the Phillips School to move pre-school classes to free up spaces at an elementary school to relieve the enrollment pressures at all three elementary schools.
The shuffling of plans is a complicated one, Fitzgerald explained at the School Committee Building and Grounds Subcommittee meeting. It begins with the Early Steps Preschool program from Hosmer School to the Phillips Building.
- Three classes will go into a renovated maintenance area on the first floor
- one class will go into a room used as a conference room by the Watertown Public Schools
- a full-day preschool class and a Connections class (which includes mainstream and special needs students) will use two classrooms that had been used by the Growing Places preschool before it moved out
The rooms at Hosmer that had been used for the preschool will house four classes, including some from other schools:
- a Lowell Pre-K class,
- a Cunniff Pre-K class
- a Cunniff kindergarten
- a Hosmer English Language Learner (ELL) class
- one extra room at Hosmer will remain and could take another room if enrollment keeps growing
Meanwhile, the spaces freed up at the elementary schools will allow for additional classes.
- the Lowell Pre-K room will become a new first grade classroom
- the Cunniff Pre-K room will become a special education classroom
- the Cunniff kindergarten room will become a new third grade classroom
- the Hosmer ELL room will become a new fourth grade classroom
Fitzgerald said she would rather spend money on property the district owned, rather than renting space or modular classrooms. She added that she expects the Phillips School – which has two more floors – to become a school down the line as the district grows.
She also said that the district’s did not receive any proposals when it request for bids on modular classrooms.
The plan can be completed and ready for the beginning of school in September, but it will be a tight schedule, said Charles Kellner, director of Business Services.
The School Committee’s Buildings and Grounds Subcommittee approved recommending the concept and approved spending $70,000 on preliminary architectural plans on Monday.The total project cost would be $530,000. Kellner said the district has the money for the designs in the operating budget right now.
The matter did could not wait for the full School Committee to vote because there is a very aggressive construction schedule, Kellner said.
Under the proposed schedule drawn up by Gienapp Design, project designs would be completed by mid-June, and bids would go out at that time, too. Bids would be reviewed and contracts would be awarded by mid-July. Work would begin in mid-July and would take about 6 weeks, win an extra week to reach final completion on Sept. 2.
Parents and School Committee members at the meeting had concerns about issues like places for the children to play and have recess at Phillips, where they can eat and a nurse.
Students would also be able to share the gym with the Senior Center.
“We look at that as a wonderful opportunity for intergenerational activities,” Fitzgerald said.
The site also has grassy areas that could be fenced in for use as a play area for children. School Committee member Eileen Hsu-Balzer suggested meeting with abutters to the school to explain what is going on.
Food will be prepared off-site and brought in, Kellner said.
A half-time nurse will be added to the district next year, and that nurse would serve the classes at the Phillips, Fitzgerald said. She noted, that the person would not always be on site, but if there is an emergency there is a full-time nurse across the street at Watertown High School.
Hsu-Balzer said she wants to know all the expenses, not just the construction costs, associated with the plan – including staffing, transportation and more.
Fitzgerald said she would have a report at the June 6 School Committee meeting. Also at that meeting, she expects Decision Insite, the district’s demographic consultant, to present its projections for the enrollment in the fall of 2016.
Thank you for the info. We in Watertown need to face the change that is here already- overcrowding in the schools.
Wake up Watertown seniors – There appears to be a deliberate movement to once again pit seiors vs children. First they say the Senior center does not recognize the needs of seniors. Then they ignore the fact that we share the Gym and the parking lot with the Phillips school and demand more programs at the Senior center . Then the Seniors are not informed of the plans to reopen the school or ask us for any input.
When do we have the transparency the Town asks for?
I would say that it is less a issue of transparency in this case then communication and proactively getting this issue dealt with last January(or years before!). This change was spelled out in one open forum sub committee meeting, but not advertised widely, nor all the stake holders informed(and not just the seniors but the parents of children who will be affected and the Watertown Family Network). All stakeholders(seniors/parents/WFN/residents) should have been fully notified of the possible change and encouraged to come out to the subcommittee meeting(which did not happen). There needs to be many more meetings to engage parents/residents and allow for dialog. Some parents were sent a very brief(two lines maybe) letter stating their pre-k will be moving to Phillips(that was all folks). The Administration and SC need to work proactively to get the information out and engage residents/parents when big changes are going to occur(or even possibly occur) not keep them in the dark until things have changed!
I am a neighbor (and a senior) and look forward to the Phillips School being used as a school again. How about the school department moving into the old police station with storage for the library. The maker space HATCH could go into the old branch libraries sharing daytime space with people who need offices part of the day. All it takes is money, I know, but Watertown has a new chance to be vibrant and responsive. Let’s go with it. It is a wonderful thing to have lots of children in families that want them to grow up here, as we wanted for our kids. My sons, in their late thirties and early forties are still very close friends with kids they grew up with here, though they live all over the country. Something about this town and the relationships it fosters. How wonderful is that?
I remember Barbara Watertown’s kids growing up at the Phillips School…her dogs waited patiently for that bell to ring and then affectionately greeted all the kids as they walked home from school.