WESTFIELD – The ad hoc committee created by the Westfield School Committee to look into options for students of Juniper Park Elementary School for this coming school year laid out the pricing for their top five choices at a special meeting last night at Westfield City Hall.
In front of a dozen concerned parents of Juniper children, the committee – composed of the full school committee’s Vice Chair Cindy Sullivan, Finance Committee Chair Kevin Sullivan and led by committee member Ramon Diaz – decided, along wth district Superintendent Dr. Suzanne Scallion and Director of Technology and Services Ronald Rix, to hold another meeting on Wednesday, October 15 before preparing any recommendations for the full school committee at their next meeting on October 20.
Despite not making any formal recommendation as a body, the committee did unveil the projected costs for each of the five options they presented earlier in the week, including start-up and annual costs for modular classroom units, along with projected costs over three-, five- and ten-year periods.
Scallion said that the numbers for the top three most cost-effective options presented to the ad-hoc committee – the Westfield Boys & Girls Club, South Middle School and the Russell Elementary School – would be less costly than the two least-favorable options – the parking lots of Highland and Franklin Avenue schools.
“The start-up costs, including the preparation of the site and the setup of the portables/modulars and their delivery charge is actually $2.6 million,” said Scallion. “The cost for Franklin and Highland would be comparable, if not more than, that. If you look at three years, you’ve got a $1.1 million average for South, Highland or Franklin.”
Scallion spoke of possibly renting the modular units for extended periods of time, citing the potential for renovating other buildings in the district and the high cost of transporting and installing the units.
“I can’t see the future, but I can anticipate, based on the condition of some of our schools, we could be looking at repairs down the road,” she said. “So if we bring modulars to the city of Westfield and set up this temporary school, would we need it in three or five years? Would we need to relocate say, Highland? At the cost of bringing these here, we may not want to push them out of town right away.”
According to a data table supplied to the committee, the option to relocate the students of Juniper Park to the Westfield Boys & Girls Club, along with several modular units in the parking lot, would see start-up costs of $1.6 million and an additional annual cost of $222,500 (rent and modular costs).”
The annual cost for using the Boys & Girls Club over three years would be roughly $755,000, according to Scallion.
The most intriguing option was the potential plan to move Juniper Park’s students into an elementary school in the neighboring town of Russell, which has gone unused since the Gateway Regional School District shut the school down to budget restrictions in 2008.
Sitting only 6.1 miles from Juniper Park’s frontdoor, the school would require the least amount of taxpayer start-up cash, but could force the district to jump through numerous legal hoops to realize those savings.
“The start-up costs are a question mark – we don’t know. Potentially nothing,” said Scallion. “The annual cost for modulars would start at $260,000 and, as in the lease with Juniper, we go up according to the consumer-price index.”
“We’re not anticipating transportation costs in our current contract. We have enough wiggle room in our current contract to bus all of the kids,” she said. “The average size of the buses are 30-35 kids and there’s seven of them. We could absorb all of the other kids on those seven buses and not incur any additional funds.”
“Across the board, the Russell option is most advantageous to the taxpayers. It’s the one that is about what we pay at Juniper” said Diaz. “As far as our budget next year, it is pretty much identical with exception of whatever increases we incur with inflation. The Boys & Girls Club – the next best option pricewise – is still, in it’s first year, $1.5 million more for that option.”
Diaz said that he visited the school recently and was impressed by its condition and while all signs point to Russell as being the logical choice for the district financially, Kevin Sullivan sought to pump the brakes on a recommendation.
“There’s just so many questions with the MSBA (Massachusetts School Building Authority), with the state and with DESE (Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) about whether or not, once we cross town lines, whether it’s even an option,” he said.
“What I’d rather do is give us a week to get some questions, because we’re on a timeline to make a decision by the end of October,” Sullivan said. “I would rather have another meeting before the 20th. I’m sure this is new to some of the parents, I’d like to get some input from them and I’m sure they don’t have all their questions tonight.”
Parents raised concerns about everything from snow days to the availability of emergency medical services, but by the end of the meeting, parents and committee members were optimistic about the decision to continue the discussion at the next meeting.
“I thought it was a very healthy, open interaction, with parents bringing forward legitimate concerns and we need to vet all of those before a decision of the school committee is made,” said Scallion after last night’s meeting. “All options are still on the table.”
“I honestly do not care where they go, just as long as they’re together and they’re safe,” said Katherine Zavras-Bentrewicz, a Juniper Park parent. “I don’t care if they’re in Russell, if they go into modulars here. I would prefer if they stayed in the city, but as long as they stay together as a group – including the special needs programs – I think that that’s the bottom line.”
Regarding the concerns raised by some parents over the availability of emergency medical services at the rural school, Zavras-Bentrewicz said it is incumbent upon the parents to decide where they’re comfortable sending their children.
“If we find out that they are on a volunteer basis, I think that if you have a child that has a need always looming, then maybe you need to make a school choice,” she said. “Suzanne Scallion has said that she’s extending the school choice and is being way more lenient than she has in the past.”
