Somerville's children deserve local schools that keep our communities strong and thriving. I would like our city officials to answer these questions about the new school project at Sycamore St - BEFORE we commit to building a 925 student school instead of 690 this August. 

 1. How will the city address enrollment needs on the western side of Somerville if the Brown school is closed? 

There are not enough spaces at either West or Kennedy to accommodate all of the current students on the west side of Somerville with the Brown School operational, let alone if it closes. In the future, enrollment needs on the west side of Somerville will be exacerbated by the 425 new units of housing being built at the Clarendon Hills site as well as the potential new apartments from the Cooper Mill project in Davis Square. 

 2. Will the city provide a new catchment plan for the entire city, and if so, how will this affect the other schools in Somerville? 

Will the catchment reassignments provide a walkable school option for every child or will it leave more dead zones where walkability is not a realistic option? I am concerned that the burden of transporting children to schools will fall on families when walkability is not an option with this centralized school model. I am also concerned that the loss of walkability will cause more families to drive, putting more cars on the road, which is in direct contradiction to the city’s commitment to Vision Zero and Somerville’s climate goals. 

 3. What is the city’s plan for traffic and parking for a 925-student capacity school at Sycamore Street? 

Traffic and parking were already strained when the school was operational with 450 seats at this site. Now, more than double the number of staff will need to find parking in the immediate vicinity and more than double the number of families will be driving to the school, given the need to draw enrollment from farther, less walkable catchment areas. 

 4. How does the city envision the future of school choice in Somerville? 

The controlled choice lottery in Somerville has been a valuable and successful system for managing school enrollment, allowing a large majority of families to enroll their child in their first-choice school each year. Families are at risk of losing this agency with a centralized, consolidated school model. With a disproportionate number of seats located east of the center of the city, there will be more demand than is available for seats for families seeking to send their child to the closest neighborhood school on the west half of the city, leading to more families unable to send their child to their first-choice school. Additionally, eliminating two small school environments, one neighborhood school, and the only K-5 school in the city further reduces families’ choice. 

 5. How does the city plan to provide a smaller school environment for children whose learning styles need and benefit from such an environment if both Brown and Winter Hill, two of Somerville’s smallest schools, no longer exist as small schools? 

A school that accommodates close to 925 children will not have the educational benefits of a small school, such as school leaders and administrators knowing students’ and families’ needs personally or even allowing kids to know everyone in their grade. For children that need smaller school environments, having to be reshuffled between 6 classrooms per grade every year would be disorienting and undermine educational benefits from learning in a smaller environment. 

 6. What alternative uses for the Brown School facility have been explored? 

And would the facility be preserved for community use, owned by the public and for the public’s benefit? The city does not have a good track record when it comes to adaptive reuse of former school buildings. Look what happened to the Cummings School, the 1895 building, the Western Junior High, Powderhouse Community School, and Edgerly. Do not let the Brown school facility meet the same demise, left as another abandoned or underutilized building in the city.    

7. What factors affecting affordability in Somerville were considered when prioritizing the 925 seat model?

 A 690 student school can adequately host both the seats from the Winter Hill and Brown schools (4 classrooms per grade) if needed in the future if other sources of funding don't become available for a Brown school renovation/rebuild. What benefits does a 925 seat school provide that the smaller school model cannot, and are those benefits worth the cost of the larger building? This larger 925 seat school model requires a larger debt override vote, and given financial strains Somerville's residents are feeling elsewhere (utility bills, rent) the need for taxpayers to bear the cost burden of a larger debt override isn't an obvious tradeoff for any benefits the larger school model provides. Higher taxes lead to higher rents and higher costs of living when the city is already going through an affordability crisis. 

 There are additional costs to the 925 seat option when you factor in the reality that closing the Brown school requires some type of adaptive reuse of the space. The Brown school, like all public schools, is owned by the public currently and ought to be preserved for community ownership, to benefit the public. The city has provided no transparency for these adaptive reuse costs and the dollars that it would add to the price tag of the larger school model. Are any of the alternative uses for the Brown school site and facility significantly more cost effective than building the smaller 690 seat building and planning for a future renovation of the Brown school for continued operations as a school?