Cold Spring Elementary School was a fitting setting for last week’s Select Board meeting – the building itself was the subject of an update from Town Manager Derek Brindisi on the building’s uncertain future.
A study is underway to explore the feasibility of replacing it and the nearby Hedge Elementary School on the corner of Cherry Street and Standish Avenue with one facility. Both North Plymouth buildings are aging – neither has central air conditioning, for example The oldest part of Cold Spring is about 117 years old, and Hedge dates back 76 years.
Both schools are small. Cold Spring’s student population for the coming school year is expected to be 178, and 176 students are set to attend classes at Hedge.
Hedge also serves many immigrant families. Last year, 34% of its students were English-language learners, and for 42%, it was not their primary language.
Officials have said consolidation makes economic, educational, and logistical sense, but the proposition may not sit well with those sentimental about the neighborhood schools and their long history.
Last Tuesday, Brindisi told the Select Board the town has submitted two “letters of interest” to the Massachusetts School Building Authority, an agency that helps municipalities and regional districts finance new schools or renovate existing ones.
“The MSBA has accepted Hedge into the feasibility stage of the building program with an estimated reimbursement rate of approximately 53%,” he said, which means it will consider partially financing a project to combine the two schools into one.
The feasibility acceptance does not automatically mean that will happen. Consolidation “would have to be studied during the feasibility study to see if it makes educational and fiscal sense,” said Adam Blaisdell, assistant superintendent of finance and school operations, in an email.
The location of a new elementary school also is yet to be determined. Cold Spring is on a 7.64-acre lot, while Hedge’s property is just over 2 acres. Blaisdell said “if those properties are the only two options and consolidation moves forward, we hope that Cold Spring would be the site due to the size of the property. However, there cannot be any solid decisions made at this point because we need to go through the whole MSBA process and examination of all options.”
Next up: What a new building might look like.
“We are currently in the process of going through the designer selection process for an architectural firm,” Brindisi told the Select Board during the meeting at Cold Spring.
After that decision is made, he said, school officials plan to schedule “multiple community meetings in this area to have conversations about those schools.” Those are likely to start in the fall.
Brindisi noted that while the town has a building committee, the state requires it to have a separate committee focused solely on building a new school. That board’s meetings regarding the Cold Spring/Hedge project will be posted and open to the public as well, he said. According to the town’s website, the committee last met in April.
Mark Pothier can be reached at mark@plymouthindependent.org.