Above: A Town committee will be focusing on the “vision” for educational programming needs for Southborough’s elementary schools, as they work on a potential building construction/renovation project at Neary that may include space use changes that impact the other two buildings. (images from school websites)
Last week, I wrote about the recommendation to the Select Board for a future Community Center that is contingent on the outcome of other work being done by the Neary Building Committee. Yesterday, an update was issued on that committee’s work.
A message from the NSBORO superintendent and the committee chair was posted for the community via Parent Square. It explained that as part of the committee’s work “to identify and recommend the best school building location and design” for a school, they first need to ensure it aligns with the Town’s vision for how educational space should be used.
Part of that process will include holding “visioning sessions”. They also announced upcoming public forums for the community to ask questions. Those will take place the evenings of February 29th and March 11th.
Below is the full message:
Dear Southborough Community Members,
During the past several months, the Neary Building Committee (NBC) has continued its work. In partnership with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) and in working with Skanska, the Town of Southborough’s project manager, a designer was selected for the Neary School Building project. In December, NBC and MSBA voted to hire Arrowstreet as the Project Designer. This was a significant milestone.
Arrowstreet, over the next twelve to fourteen months, will lead the design process to identify and recommend the best school building location and design for the Town, ones that align with the Town’s educational vision and programming and will serve the community for the next fifty years.
The first phase of this work is to engage the community in defining and articulating the District’s vision and educational programming that will be the basis for creating various design scenarios. As part of this information-gathering process, a small working group will spend time at each of Southborough’s three current elementary schools, in order to understand current needs and building usage.
Additionally, over the next six weeks, Arrowstreet and the District will hold visioning sessions with Town boards and committees, parents and guardians, educators and students. In order to identify the ideal spaces that will meet the needs of all learners and provide educators with spaces to maximize high-quality teaching and learning, the District will utilize these visioning sessions to identify goals, values, and priorities which will be input to Arrowstreet. Arrowstreet will develop design scenarios from this input for further review and refinement. The goal is to identify one schematic design by the end of a twelve to fourteen-month feasibility phase, which will then be presented to the voters at Town Meeting in the Spring of 2025.
We will be hosting two open public forums to answer questions from the community and hear from you. The forums are scheduled for Thursday, February 29th, and Monday, March 11th from 7 – 8:30 PM at the Trottier School Library. The format and content will be identical on both nights. All members of the community are welcome and encouraged to attend.
Please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions or feedback.
Greg Martineau, Superintendent of Schools
gmartineau@nsboro.k12.ma.usJason Malinowski, Chair, Neary Building Committee
jmalinowski@southboroughma.comFull Neary Building Committee Membership Listing
Voting Members
Jason Malinowski, Chair, Capital Planning and Improvement Committee Representative
Denise Eddy, Vice Chair, Citizen at Large
Andrew Pfaff, Clerk, Advisory Committee Representative
Roger Challen, School Committee Representative
Kathy Cook, Select Board Representative
Mark Davis, Citizen at Large
Chris Evers, Citizen at LargeEx-officio Members:
Greg Martineau, Superintendent of Schools
Keith Lavoie, Assistant Superintendent of Operations
Stephanie Reinhorn, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning
Rebecca Pellegrino, School Director of Finance
Steve Mucci, Woodward School Principal
I was in a meeting last week with senate President Karen Spilka and she was telling our group that Bay State Community college wants to expand their EMT and nursing programs here in Metro West. Her aid indicated to me that the college may be very interested in renting an existing school building for expansion It may interest citizens who would rather take in a big rent check for the buildings from a good tenant like the Commonwealth rather than spend millions and millions of dollars with increased taxes for Southborough taxpayers. I would not doubt it if some needed space could be carved out of the lease for additional Town space. Naturally the political class would hate to miss the big ribbon cutting ceremony big new projects bring, but then wouldn’t it be nice to have added revenue come into the town coffers, rather than see the dollars fly out of the citizens badly worn-out pockets.