Last week a group of us started a citizen’s petition to amend the current Town Meeting warrant with the hopes of returning to the original two-school model (no greater than 490 students at Winthrop). It is our firm belief that, not only is building a small school at the centrally-located Winthrop site the right decision for the students of Ipswich, but it is also the plan that has the best chance of passing at the ballot box.
It’s important to note that by no means does this group plan on abandoning Doyon and its families. Quite the opposite. We are as committed to Doyon as we are to Winthrop. This plan would seek to allocate funds for critical and immediate improvements to Doyon. More importantly, however, we ask the School Committee and superintendent to immediately submit another Statement of Interest to the MSBA to ensure Doyon gets approved for 45 percent funding for its comprehensive rebuild at the earliest opportunity. Recent information gleaned from the MSBA in a conference call with town officials indicated that this is an entirely appropriate option for the town should we decide to go this route. More than 20 towns in Massachusetts have received funding for two separate schools, the large majority in fewer than five years, some even in concurrent years. The immediate effect of the rebuilt school at Winthrop would be to lighten the burden on the overcrowded Doyon School as it would take in families from the “gray zone.”
So, how could this plan be more palatable to voters, regardless of whether citizens have children in the public schools? For one, it reduces the enormous sticker shock of the combined one school tax burden. Current estimates for a combined school at Doyon is somewhere in the ballpark of $66 million, and that is not taking into account the potential (likely?) additional millions due to lack of town sewer lines and gas lines at the proposed Doyon site. The 420 configuration at Winthrop should cost roughly just over half, and much of the site evaluation has already been completed. Taking a two-school, multi-phased approach maximizes the potential state funding, but with less-frightening incremental tax increases instead of a drastic, politically-harmful surge in taxes. It shows a restraint and pragmatism that many voters can get behind.
On more of an emotional level, many of us feel that taking a school away from our downtown strips the community of a key source of its energy and lifeblood. The original mandate the School Committee had in place for deciding site placement was that it should be centrally-located. We cannot lose sight of this. Schools and its student population are always a hub of activity for any community and to take away one of its major hubs while trying to attract people and businesses to the town just doesn’t make any sense. We want a bustling, thriving town, not a ghost town.
I could launch into many other persuasive reasons for the two smaller school solution (dramatically less busing burdens, environmental factors, easier accessibility, increased ability for those without vehicles to attend after-school activities (ACE) and teacher meetings, the higher rates of achievement at small schools…) but I believe if you take anything away from this column, it should be this: A two-school solution is both better for the young people of Ipswich and will have a much better chance of success at Town Meeting and the ballot. It is a plan that is pro-child, pro-family, pro-Winthrop, pro-Doyon, pro-taxpayer and ultimately pro-Ipswich.