11 October, 2011
After publishing a press release stating that the existing grant cannot be re-purposed to build the existing Fruit Street design as a PreK-3 building, Superintendent Jonathan Landman announced, at a joint meeting of the School Committee and Board of Selectmen on October 6, that the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) has not closed off the idea of a Fruit Street grant.
Instead, Landman said that Senator Karen Spilka and Representative Carolyn Dykema had both talked with people at the MSBA and returned with the message that communication from Hopkinton, between the failed vote in March and now, has been insufficient and more information about what the town wants is needed. A meeting with the MSBA was recommended.
Landman explained that the MSBA is looking for more information from the leadership of the community about how they are reaching out to the town to get a sense of what the town wants.
Other feedback from Spilka indicated that the MSBA felt that Hopkinton had not made its case for a PreK-3 configuration and that they were still looking for that argument from the school district.
“This reopened, for all us, the question of whether we should be closing the door on the grant, just yet,” said Landman. “We went into the meeting with the representatives thinking that we were getting ready to close the door on the Fruit Street building and the representatives strongly encouraged us not to close the door just yet.”
The announcement generated a lot of discussion and a variety of opinions on what the next steps should be. Landman said Spilka recommended a meeting with the MSBA before soliciting any input from residents. Town Manager Norman Khumalo was in favor of reaching out to the MSBA sooner rather than later, as were Landman and Brian Herr. Selectman John Mosher thought community outreach should come first.
School Committee member Scott Aghababian said he had concerns about going down a path to a hybrid solution that was very similar to what had already been rejected by voters in March and was afraid residents would question whether anyone had listened to what they had already said.
Two questions raised at the meeting included whether or not the grant could be used for a location other than Fruit Street and whether or not the MSBA would entertain repairs at Elmwood at the same time. While the previous answer from the MSBA allowed only one project at a time, School Committee Chair Jean Bertschmann suggested revisiting this as well as the options for Fruit Street.
Next steps to be taken were finally agreed upon and include setting up a joint meeting with both boards and the MSBA facilitated by Senator Spilka at the State House and continuing with community forums and surveys to gather public input.
