HANOVER – A joint meeting of the South Shore Tech School Committee and School Building Committee on Wednesday, Oct. 25 voted 7-0, with one member absent, on the procedure for bringing a school renovation or expansion project to the voters in its eight member towns.
They also voted to authorize the building project team to submit the preliminary design program (PDP) draft to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) including the educational plan.
The Building Committee meets again on Thursday, Nov. 2 and the SST School Committee meets next on Wednesday, Nov. 15. A community meeting in Whitman is scheduled for 7 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 14 in Whitman Town Hall. Similar meetings are scheduled for Nov. 9 in Marshfield and Dec. 5 in Rockland.
All those attending the Zoom session have a vested interest in knowing how the district would ask their communities to weigh in on an eventual school project, according to Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey, in introducing bond counsel Rick Manley from the firm Lockelord.
“Rick has been a huge help to us over the years – including all the years when we were hoping we’d get in [to the MBSA project pipeline] and a lot of ‘what ifs,’” Hickey said. The School Committee has the power to determine how the district will ask its voters for their approval or disapproval of a project.
“It is on our agenda tonight for you to take action,” he said, noting it requires a two-thirds of all committee members voting to pass.
Assuming regional school debt can be done in two different ways, Manley said.
“It sounds as though, at this preliminary [point] you’d like to consider going to the towns in a district-wide election to seek approval,” he said. A majority of voters – 51 percent – casting affirmative votes during that election, regardless as to town, would pass the measure by voting un favor.
The district could also opt for a town-by-town election process.
“When you know what the total amount’s going to be, that you’ve gotten approval from MSBA, you then vote to approve the debt, subject to an election happening, on town meeting warrants,” based on the committee’s vote, Manley said.
Not only question, but the polling hours – no longer than eight hours on an election day for each town – should be the in all eight towns. The district is not required to go before town meetings to appropriate the money.
Whitman representative Dan Salvucci asked if ballot questions would include what each town’s share of the project cost would be.
He noted that both Whitman and Abington have projects going at the present time, which could affect the response from those two towns, he said.
“If we decide to put on the cost for each town – Whitman is 24 percent, a quarter of the bill – and we’ve got a DPW project that’s going on right now, so I don’t know how the residents of Whitman are going to feel about that,” Salvucci said. “Because we need the school.”
Manley said it is possible to do that, and has been done by a couple other district, but indicated the best information that could be offered is the approximate share of the principal of the borrowing.
“This ballot question is not asking a town how they’re going to pay for it,” Hickey said. “Some communities would handle that separately.”
Manley agreed that there is no legal authority for a district to put a debt exclusion question on its ballot. Select Boards must do that.
Communities must also come to agreement on the number of polling places being operated for the vote.
“We try very hard as we advise on one of these to kind of bring everybody along to a consensus to that,” he said. Because turnout is lower for this kind of election, Manley’s firm has advised all communities they work with, including cities like Chelsea and Revere to have just one polling place open.
Voters would also be limited to voting on the day of the election or through the absentee voting process.
“We’ve been advised at the Secretary of State’s office that early voting is not permitted for one of these elections,” Maley said. “The reason for that, I believe, is because the activity of early voting can be opted in or not.”
That would create problems for the requirement of uniformity in access to the voting process.
Hickey said the special election on the school would be in January 2025 – after the 2024 general election.
“There’s enough time to orient everyone, to bring our town clerks together,” he said. “They’re the experts at how to do this. Let’s work with them to develop a mechanism with doing nothing last-minute.”
The educational plan amended during the meeting is part of the preliminary design program (PDP) summary.
“This is a significant next step in our process,” Hickey said.
Jen Carlson from project management firm Left Field reviewed building options and comparative cost analyses.
Carl Franchesci of architectural firm DRA, said the four components of the PDP are the educational program for a range of student populations between the current 645 and the maximum 975 which the MSBA would consider; an existing conditions assessment; site development requirements and preliminary options.
More than half the current building space is insufficient and/or fails to meet today’s standards for the current enrollment. Site development requirements are also addressed in the PDP.
Of the four options facing the district at the start of the process – base repair, renovation, addition/renovation and new construction – base repair and renovation have been ruled out.
The addition/renovation and new construction options could add from 188,000 square feet to 278,000 square feet to the building in one of five design choices, for a total of 25 options. The options also include choices of the site layout with the building and athletic fields in differing locations.
“For any of these enrollments that are being considered, greater than what you have today, it’s highly likely … we’re going to need a wastewater treatment plant,” Franchesci said.
Preliminary cost estimates – for comparative purposes only – at this stage, which are based on square-footage alone,
The numbers provide an indication of what options could be close in price or preferable to another, but are not actual construction cost numbers.
“It might influence us to make some decisions, but it’s not the headline that we’ve got the answer on how much it’s going to cost,” Hickey said.
“We’ve tried to account for where the costs in each option will be so we can compare apples to apples,” Carlson said.
She indicated the MSBA was planning to increase the cost per square foot on Oct. 26, which they did.
Very preliminary figures – for comparison purposes only – for all complete project costs in all design options for a new building range from $293,737,225 for a 645-student building to $329,912,113 for a building that can accommodate 750 students. Total construction costs are estimated at $234,989.780 to $263,929,690 for a new building.
Salvucci noted that portable classrooms for an addition/renovation option are projected at $11 million all by themselves.
“It’s kind of like a waste of money to go renovation rather than new,” he said.
“That’s the trend we’re seeing right now across all of our projects, that an add/reno is either becoming more expensive or as expensive as new construction,” Carlson said.
Salvucci said the committee has to decide how many students they think will be enrolled in the school by the time it is built as well as in the future, especially as more towns have expressed interest in becoming member communities.
“That becomes the sweet spot question of how much access can we afford to give a very popular form of education in our region,” Hickey said.
SST enrollment is now at 671, according to Hickey, but the MSBA required the district to consider what a building at that enrollment would cost.
“In my opinion, if you were to put a feeling behind some of these enrollment numbers, I would say the 645 [option] makes things worse,” he said. “Whatever I’m saying is going to have to be attached to a price tag, and ultimately, we’ve got to find something affordable, but if we can limit the question to ‘Can we service kids with these numbers? The 645 is less capacity than what we have now … 750 students would be kind of like our current situation plus Marshfield.”
At 805, the school would begin to solve its waiting list issues, but that is not the MSBA’s concern in approving a building. Hickey said the question of enrollment permitted by the design phase will continue at the Nov. 2 meeting.
“They want to make sure that the spaces in the building match up to the ed[ucational] plan,” Carlson said. “That’ll also help you to make decisions.”

HANSON – Town officials tackled questions of better communication and efficient use of town properties as the Select Board hosted another strategies planning session on Tuesday, Oct. 17 at Camp Kiwanee’s Needles Lodge.
Following brief updated from Town Administrator Lisa Green, IT Director Steve Moberg, Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf, and Planner Anthony DeFrias, the officials from town departments toward solving problems in the session that lasted about an hour.
The focus of their work was in the areas of interdepartmental and intra-departmental communication; communication with the community; and maintenance and optimization of assets such as town buildings.
“How do we make money out of the buildings that we’ve got and the assets that we have?” Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We need to take care of things, but how do we get the money out of them as well?”
Green said IT director Moberg, who was unable to attend, has worked on a new web platform for the town, which has a site map and Moberg is beginning to reach out to departments and committees to determine if links need updating with information such as committee membership.
Kinsherf provided a post-town meeting financial snapshot of town finances, including the $1.4 million, $1.4 million in stabilization, another “couple of thousand” in school stabilization for projects, $145,000 in Camp Kiwanee retained earnings and $772,000 in the ambulance fund.
“I think we’re in pretty solid shape,” he said, but still expects to see a $1.3 million shortfall when the budget process for fiscal 2025 begins. “[But], the more eyes and ears on the budget, the better. I actually like that.”
DeFrias reported that the town has received grants for pedestrian improvements near the MBTA station on Main Street and another toward the town’s master plan for which the Old Colony Planning Council had met with the Planning Committee to develop a steering committee by next June.
Green said grant funding is also pending for a new heating pumps at Town Hall and two hybrid police cruisers. Another grant is funding the capital improvement plan.
“We’re making strides in terms of getting information out there,” Green said.
Facilitator Ann Donner, instead of having officials break out into groups they were already involved in, asked the meeting as a whole to “look at particular challenges or issues … and to think outside the box,” encouraging officials to be involved in areas they may not have been involved with before.
“It’s that outside thinking that really helps advance our work in these areas,” she said, breaking the meeting into three groups to examine problem areas and come up with specific actions to help arrive at an answer or solution.
Following the 30-minute break-out sessions, the groups reported on their discussions to the meeting as a whole.
DeFrias, speaking on communication with the community pointed to social media as a major tool the town might use with links placed on the town website. Tying the town’s newsletter to the website and submitting information to the Express and cable access channel were discussed. The newspaper and cable access information could also be linked to social media in an effort to get more exposure to the public, he said.
Outreach to schools and the use of an information kiosk at Town Hall were also options.
“Obviously, as we all know, the town as well as the country and the state, are aging, and how do we get other people involved?” he said, describing the need for reaching out to the schools. “You need to get younger citizens involved. … At some point, they’re going to become voters and Hanson, like many towns, has one of the last forms of democratic government – it’s people that vote.”
Fire Chief Robert O’Brien Jr., reported on the discussion about internal communications. He said an ad hoc group between the fire and building departments, the Board of Health and the town administrator, has been meeting weekly for the past couple of months.
“It’s been very well-received within our departments and … we’ve been able to fix a bunch of things before they become issues,” he said. A monthly meeting between all town departments to increase the number of people involved and able to have input and the resources that can be put to work.
“It doesn’t have to be just department heads,” he said. “We’ve already got a meeting for that.”
Frank Milisi reported on the discussion about optimizing the use of town properties, beginning with making an inventory of town assets and the condition of them.
“We have to ask ourselves three questions: Is it serving a public purpose? What are the maintenance costs? And, if we’re not using it, is there an opportunity to rent, lease or sell?” he said.
“It’s a matter of prioritization,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’ve got a lot of good feedback, and hopefully you guys have felt like, even just from the first meeting to now, some of the ideas that have come up, you have moved on them. Lisa has moved on them, the board has moved on them, you guys have moved on them – there’s discernable progress.”

It’s that time of year, again when the Mass. Association of School Committees (MASC) seeks support of resolutions regarding educational issues at its annual conference.
As there are often some controversial topics on that list, this year is no different, as the W-H School Committee voted on Wednesday, Oct. 11 to support higher fines for passing school buses and changes to the MCAS test, while expressing concern about a requirement for a diversity coordinator and rejecting a safe gun storage education plan as outside a school committee’s responsibility.
The recommendation calling on the General Court to enact legislation to give cities and towns the ability to install digital detection monitoring systems on school buses in the interest of pursuing fines against drivers who pass stopped school buses as well as legislation raising those fines.
The fines are intended to be a “significant schedule of fines” as a penalty for the violations either witnessed by a police officer or recorded by a digital video monitor. The equipment would be a district expense.
Right now, the fine is $200.
“Is there a way the [expected] $41.8 million in tickets could be sent back to us?” Member Glen DiGravio asked. “That would be fantastic. It would pay for itself.”
Member Fred Small said the legislature was speaking about that possibility.
“If this came through in legislation, I’m sure there would be grant funding for safety and security from the governor’s office so that all buses would have that,” Szymaniak said.
The MASC has also recommend all districts appoint a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) coordinator to work toward anti-racism is only putting a title to a person, Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said. The MASC is recommending that all districts adopt the position at its annual conference this month.
“We have that person in place,” he said. “If it has to be a certain, specific title, that makes me a little anxious.”
They hired Director of Equity and MTSS Nicole Semas-Schneeweis
School Committee on Wednesday, Oct. 11, but Szymaniak expressed concern that, he would have to rename the position and take away other responsibilities.
Committee member David Forth, who will represent the W-H School Committee at the MASC asked for guidance as to what questions he should ask.
“You can get up and speak and tell why we voted that way or what our question is,” Chair Beth Stafford said.
DiGravio asked if the resolution would make the position mandatory for school districts that don’t already have it and if there are districts that don’t have such a position now.
“These are just recommendations,” Stafford said.
Stafford asked the committee for meeting norms they wished to suggest for discussion and possible adoption. They will be revisited at the next meeting, when a full committee could attend. Member Steve Bois was absent from the meeting.
The review of MCAS results is also up for a change as the MCAS seeks a more consensus-building wider approach to an evaluation system with “meaningful input from legitimate stakeholders,” investigating the extent of bias in the testing and seeking an immediate moratorium on the MCAS test while an alternative method is developed.
Stafford reminded the School Committee that the MTA is sponsoring a petition to put the issue on a ballot.
“The devil we know is better than the devil we don’t know,” said committee member Hillary Kniffen, who teaches sophomore English. “It’s not going away, they’re talking about replacing it with something else. … I worry about this.”
MTA is working to remove the MCAS a graduation requirement.
DiGravio asked for clarification about what the resolution means by “high-stakes” and “bias.” The stakes are that students must pass it to graduate.
Bias, on the other hand, pertains to cultural bias in the wording of questions, especially for students who come from another country, and problematic accommodations for students with learning differences.
“It is a flawed test, to say the least,” Kniffen said.
“I have always been against it being a graduation requirement because I have a grandson who has Down Syndrome,” Stafford said. “He’ll never be able to pass that and not being able to do a portfolio [demonstrating his learning progress], why can’t he get a diploma?”
She said he would receive a certificate of attendance instead.
“Not good enough,” DiGravio said.
Both Kniffen and Stafford said they have never taught to the test.
Another bias is that students attending private schools do not have to take the MCAS to graduate.
Szymaniak said research has never support the efficacy of high-stakes tests. The committee endorsed the three resolutions and voted on several others.
Vice Chair Chris Scriven said the committee members should “all remember that they’re one of 10. We best serve our committee and our constituents when we act as a committee,” he said.
Member David Forth said communication and collaboration are important. Members do not always see things eye-to-eye, but the two approaches have helped reach an understanding of each other that benefits teamwork.
Member Hillary Kniffen said that once action has been taken on a vote, members should support the official position of the School Committee. It is a norm she has found in researching several other such outlines of norms across the state.
“The time to discuss our viewpoints [on a specific issue] … to have those conversations with people in the community and send emails, is prior to when that public hearing and vote is going to be taking place, not after,” she said.
Stafford said she wants to see the committee come to meetings with an open mind, members should think before they speak, treat one another as professionals and have a suggestion for every complaint.
Public Comment, again focused on the proposed Whitman Middle School project with Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly spoke about an agenda item dealing with public presentations, noting there are locations available for them at libraries, the WHCA public access channel.
“I want the public to understand that school committees have very complex jobs,” she said. “School committee budgets are separate from municipal budgets – not just regionals, but also in regular towns and cities – because they have to adhere to strict laws and procedures.”
She also said school committees have to meet student achievement and reasonable cost goals to present to their towns.
“That’s a big ball to carry in a [relatively] short meeting,” she said, and they are provided with a lot of vetted information from sources including the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. “To have a public entity come in and introduce something, could end up being political theater and it could be an abuse of the public trust that we swear to uphold.”
Connolly explained that Whitman’s Finance Committee and Select Board have each run into such situations unintentionally after allowing the public to come in to make presentations.
The Finance Committee had identified a weakness in busing and brought it to the schools about January 2022. Two citizens then came forward with a solution, presented as fact in a public meeting of both boards she said. The public thought the information was true, but Connolly said it was determined to be fraud in a meeting with DESE.
The problem identified by the Finance Committee still has not been solved, but “all of this theater had the public believing that it had been fixed,” and has caused political mistrust. Connolly said the people who put the “solution” forward have been looked on as experts and she fears the “face would be given” to the problem again.
Select Board member Justin Evans of Candlewick Lane, spoke to the decision the committee faces in the decision to borrow for the Whitman Middle School project: level debt vs. level principal.
“The way the town has always borrowed for projects has been by level principal, that way you take a premium the first year and the payments decline each year after that,” he said, noting there are other projects on the horizon. “That lets the town build other capital projects in over the 30 years it’s taking that debt out.”
Select Board member Shawn Kain of Forest Street spoke again about the public comment period.
“I don’t know why this is such an important issue to me,” he said, noting that he has been reflecting on why that is, but the closest thing he said he could come up with is that members of the public could come to a meeting and share. “I believe it’s very important that people can actively participate in that process,” he said of the way people used to be permitted to also speak during debate of issues before votes are taken.