(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

By Will Mbah
Candidate for Somerville City Councilor at Large

When the ceiling collapsed in the stairwell at the Winter Hill School on June 2, happily it was late in the day and no children were in the building.  But after surveying the damage, the Acting Superintendent and Mayor closed the school for the remaining two weeks of classes and the students were reassigned to other schools. 

The accident brought to a point of crisis an accumulation of problems that the city had treated for years as maintenance work but recently had begun to study in a long range plan for reconstruction or replacement.  The city will now have to decide whether the school can safely reopen in the fall with emergency repairs, or may better be closed permanently. 

With either decision, however, it seems necessary to accelerate the long-range planning process.  Our colleagues on the City Council and School Committee have begun to think about how this planning can be done.  We encourage their efforts.

The city recognized the problems at Winter Hill and began long-range planning

The structural and building systems problems at the Winter Hill and Brown schools – which are the oldest elementary school buildings in the city – became better understood after COVID, when it was necessary to add ventilation and communications equipment and make other changes for student health and safety.  The obsolete design and overloaded systems worked badly.  In particular, the air conditioning at Winter Hill School failed in May 2022 and the teachers and parents petitioned the School Board and City Council to undertake a thorough review, looking forward to major reconstruction or replacement of the school. 

In the fall of 2022 three actions were taken.  First, the Department of Public Works (DPW) and Infrastructure and Asset Management (IAM) started more frequent inspections and faster scheduling of repairs.  Second, the City Council appropriated some funds from the stabilization accounts for systems modernization.  Third, the Mayor, School Committee and City Council authorized a long-range feasibility planning process to evaluate the conditions of Winter Hill and Brown schools in the context of city-wide student needs and resources and decide whether new construction or reconstruction would be needed.  This would follow a standard model of facility master planning with four elements: 

(1) An Enrollment Study, projecting the future growth or decline of student population in each age group and needs category;

(2) A Gap Analysis, comparing the future student needs with the system-wide physical facilities – what new schools, classrooms, common spaces, labs or other specialized spaces would be required;

(3) Project planning with a formal Construction Committee and full community engagement, if a new or reconstructed school is decided; 

(4) Design and contracting for this construction project. 

The Enrollment Study element has been completed in April 2023.  It foresees a modest decline of student population city-wide, but still foresees demand for the classrooms at the Winter Hill and Brown neighborhood locations.

Work on the Gap Analysis and subsequent Design/Contracting was originally expected to stretch to 2026 and this timing also was allowed for the City Finance Department to organize a financing mechanism and fit the costs into the capital improvement plans.      

As one method of financing, the School Committee and City Council in April 2023 authorized the School Superintendent and Mayor to send in an application for state school construction grants for Winter Hill and Brown schools.  These are competitive grants and typically take several years to achieve priority among all the other cities and towns.  

Can this feasibility planning process and capital budget planning be speeded up? Can both activities carry forward effectively at the same time that the emergency work and planning for fall re-opening of schools is underway?  Certainly the city agencies should try to do it all at once.

Urgent actions have begun

The School Department, with DPW and IAM, has begun the structural inspections to determine whether Winter Hill School can be made safe during the summer and re-open in the fall.  As a parallel contingency, they are also considering the acquisition of temporary classrooms if the building cannot be safely used.   

Members of the City Council have also acted quickly.  On 8 June, they introduced three proposals: 

• To add full-time project managers at both the DPW and IAM to work on the school emergency and planning tasks with added salary lines in the FY2024 Budget;
• To appropriate $1.3 million from existing surplus Free Cash to go into the Facilities Construction Stabilization Fund for the immediate school repairs and capital planning;
• To create a new city school emergency website to inform parents and the public as decisions and actions are taken on repairs, re-opening and planning.

The Somerville Educators Union has joined with the PTA in urging the city to move forward with a full re-construction of the Winter Hill School.  In their statement, they expressed frustration with the city’s past neglect of maintenance, but now are confident that the city has resources available for such a capital project, which would realize the first fully carbon-neutral facility in the city school system.

The Mayor, Council and School Board must give the highest priority to the questions of Winter Hill school safety, usability and long-term re-construction in all its work.  The short term, the schedule of emergency actions seems to be in place but will require their need careful and constant oversight. 

Looking beyond, by the end of June, the City Finance Department will announce the final amount of revenue that has come in for FY2023 and will calculating an expected the surplus of revenue over spending.  This will be the Free Cash that Mayor and Council can appropriate for emergencies and capital projects.  Recent discussions suggest that Free Cash may be $30 million or more this year.  The priority of affordable housing need remains, but we would support moving a substantial amount of any free cash into the Facilities Construction Stabilization Fund for Winter Hill and other schools.