North School will close
Published on April 5th, 2000
STONEHAM, MA - The School Committee voted 5-0 on Wednesday, March 29, to close the North School; programs housed there will move to the new South School and Robin Hood School for the next academic year.
"This was a budgetary decision," Superintendent Joe Connelly said.
The schools had originally drafted a budget of $18,900,000 to cover everything the administration and School Committee agreed the schools should have for next year. But after reviewing the figures with the Finance Board in the context of the entire town budget for fiscal 2001, school officials agreed to make an $18,650,000 budget work. The lower figure represents a five percent increase from fiscal 2000.
Closing the North School saves $37,000 in operating costs, and Connelly said the School Department will rent the building for $75-80,000 for the year. This takes care of around $125,000 - half of a $250,000 budget gap.
The North School is the home of the Title One program, a federally funded program designed to identify pre-school-age students with learning difficulties. The program helps prepare these children for elementary school. The North School building also houses standard pre-school classes.
The school department plans to move the Title One program and a pre-school class into the new South School and the remaining pre-school classes into Robin Hood School, in space which had been accommodating overflow during construction of the South School.
The motion of the School Committee to close North specified that the School Department would lease the building for one year to a tenant "who meets the educational needs of school-aged children."
School Committee Chairwoman Jeanne Craigie said the committee carefully considered the concerns of neighbors, many of whom were present at the Wednesday meeting held in the North School. Abutters, staff, parents and parents with children approaching the pre-school age were invited to the public meeting.
"I spoke beforehand with neighbors of the East School (now rented to the VNA) to find out what issues should be considered," Craigie added.
She said she got the idea to ask for a one-year lease requirement from talking with the East School neighbors.
Also, after listening to North School neighbors, the School Committee decided to restrict the school's rental use to the daytime hours.
"We even made sure the neighborhood kids could still use the playground," Craigie said.
"We did not want to change anything," she said, "but we had to make a decision based on the best interests of all the students in town."
Connelly said the schools had to look for "the least harmful way" to reduce the budget.
The rest of the budget gap will be closed with cuts in proposed staff additions for the next school year. No existing positions are being eliminated.
By closing the North School, school officials will even be able to add some of the new positions for which they had originally budgeted.
"Renting the school will allow us to add a .5 school nurse, a .3 school psychologist and a .5 reading teacher," Connelly said. (The numbers indicate part-time hours.)
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