A piece of fallen concrete found on a stairwell at Winter Hill Community School last week prompted an immediate shutdown of the building to students and staff. — Photo by Bobbie Toner

By Jim Clark

Somerville Schools officials and city administrators have been hard at work over the past week, looking for ways to safely and efficiently reassign students at Winter Hill Community School to alternative classrooms to finish out the school year after a piece of concrete fell onto a stairwell inside of the school last week.

While no one was inside the building at the time of the incident, the alarming event became a cause for immediate concern and the school was closed down permanently for the duration of the school term while structural engineering crews began the process of inspecting the building to assess the extent of the damage and deterioration present. Somerville Department of Public Works staff was also called in to make temporary repairs for the safety of those working at the site.

Parents of students were immediately informed of the school’s closure and the plans for relocating students to various off-site classrooms beginning immediately this week.

According to the latest information, the relocation sites are arranged as follows:

All current AIM classes will move from the Winter Hill to the first floor of the Edgerly Building, located at 8 Bonair Street (on the corner of Cross Street). Officials have said that they selected this site because the AIM summer program will also be held at the Edgerly Building, and this will minimize transitions for students in the program.

Also, the Edgerly Building has enough space on the accessible first floor to accommodate all of the current AIM classrooms, meaning that no classrooms will be split up.

Additionally, SPS schools cannot accommodate the number of classrooms needed in one location. As it stands, the classroom spaces that are being offered by Tufts University do not fully meet the needs of the AIM program, nor are there enough available classrooms to accommodate all of the Winter Hill classes.

As for transportation, the existing buses that bring AIM students to and from the Winter Hill will be rerouted to the Edgerly Building for drop off and pick up. No other change to students’ or families’ transportation plans is required.

In addition, teachers and staff will pack up and bring students’ belongings, communication devices, and other needed materials to continue through the end of the school year and into the summer.

Prekindergarten and Kindergarten will be relocating to existing classroom space at the Capuano Early Childhood Center, located at 150 Glen Street.

The Center has available space to accommodate all Winter Hill Prekindergarten and Kindergarten classrooms, which also means that there will be no need to split up any classes into other buildings. The Center is focused on early childhood and provides easy transition for younger students.

As of this time, no specific busing or transportation is planned for students between the Winter Hill and Capuano.

Teachers and staff will pack up and bring students’ belongings, communication devices, and other needed materials to continue through the end of the school year and into the summer.

Grades 1-8 will be moving to Tufts University’s Olin Hall, located at 180 Packard Ave. in Medford.

The SPS preference was to keep as many classrooms together in one location as possible. Given the existing space constraints within the city and SPS, moving 20 classrooms into one location was a significant challenge. The partners at Tufts University worked made changes to their existing programs and operations to accommodate The Winter Hill Community School’s students.

Students in grades 1-8 will be transported by school bus from Winter Hill to Olin Hall at Tufts. Buses will depart from Winter Hill at 7:45 a.m. each morning. Winter Hill staff will be on site to facilitate transportation. Students will be picked up from Olin Hall at 2:00 p.m. each afternoon and will travel by school bus to Winter Hill.

Families will not be able to drive students to and from Olin Hall. Families who choose to drive should plan to park in surrounding Somerville neighborhoods and walk to Olin Hall.

A statement released by the Somerville Educators Union read in part:

“The Winter Hill Community Innovation School in Somerville was closed to students and staff on Friday, June 2nd due to unsafe conditions that required closer assessment by city structural engineers. Serious infrastructure issues at Winter Hill are not new: the school community has dealt with floods, leaks, falling ceiling tiles, rodent infestations, broken windows, a broken HVAC system, a broken elevator, and much more. For the last three years, educators and school community members have been raising these concerns, but the city’s response has been slow. To date, the response has been to fund a school building feasibility study and to submit a Statement of Interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority to request financial support in addressing the building’s repairs.”

The statement went on to further criticize what they describe as a pattern of neglect concerning the upkeep of the school building and called for a specific long-term plan for the building including funding sources, timelines, or swing space for students during construction.

A virtual meeting was held Tuesday evening in which the mayor and school officials assured the public that they are committed to ensuring safe learning environments for the city’s student population. They also promised daily updates on actions to be planned and put into action.