With the State On Board, What's Next For Stoneham?

STONEHAM - Rome wasn't built overnight, and if there was a Rome High School rest assured it took even longer.

The celebrated news that the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) will partially fund a new Stoneham High School starts a chain of events that more resembles a marathon than a sprint. In short, don't expect a new school until probably 2025. And residents should also know that at some point you'll be asked if you want to go forward with the project. After all, it's your school.

"It's the start of the process," said Stoneham School Superintendent John Macero. "It's the start of entering the pipeline, is what I call it. You're on the track."

And you're on that track side-by-side with the MSBA.

"They're involved from day one," said Macero. "Once they say yes, they're involved. You have to jump through all of their hoops to move to the next step."

So where does it start?

For one, the town needs to hire an Operations Program Manager. It also needs a School Building Committee, a process the town had already kick-started before Wednesday's MSBA decision.

At the Tri-Board meeting last month of the School Committee, Finance Committee, and Select Board, the groups voted to establish a School Building Committee (SBC). The SBC is the group that will approve all of the processes moving forward and it's already taking shape. Nicole Nial was appointed by the School Committee to represent them and Raymie Parker was voted as the Select Board appointee.

There are other required appointments and the chairs of the Select Board (Shelly MacNeill) and School Committee (Rachel Meredith-Warren) are generally involved in the process as well. According to MacNeill, the number of people on the committee can vary beyond the required appointments and there are suggested qualifications for community members wishing to serve on the SBC. For example, it makes sense to have community members who are architects or have other helpful backrounds on the SBC.

In addition to the SBC, what Macero called an Operations Program Manager needs to be hired.

One of the first things on the SBC to-do list is a feasibility study.

Before Macero arrived a little over a year ago, Stoneham had done its own feasibility study. Regardless of that, the MSBA will make the town do another. "Because it's their penny, it's their product. They want to make sure you've looked under every rock," said Macero.

Stoneham's feasibility study concluded with three options and if you attended the most recent Town Day you may have seen these on display:

1. Renovate the whole building.
2. Renovate part of the building, mostly the academic wing
3. Build a brand new building outright.

Out of those three options, a feasibility study tells you where you could build, what you could build, and also what the cost would be. The feasibility study can take up to three years.

"Then between third and fourth year you've got your project all on paper and you're ready to go," Macero explained. "You've selected your option and now you go to the community and the community says yes or no. If the community says yes, then it's usually six months to a year for the design process to be all done. Once that's done, you put the shovel in the ground. Once you put the shovel in the ground, it's usually two years.

"If you take a look at all of that, it's anywhere from 5-6 years from the moment they (MSBA) tell us, you're in."

In other words, 2024-25. And don't assume the school will be on the site it is now.

"With the feasibility you hire a designer and a designer comes in because you have to look at everything," said Macero. "Even though we assume we'll build a high school here, where the current high school is, MSBA is going to push us and say is there anywhere else that you could build."

After working with the MSBA to build a new Winthrop High School as that community's superintendent, Macero is a fan.

"They are the best organization that a tax payer could want. They are on the project 24/7 with you and they question every single thing to make sure tax payer dollars are well spent. That's why I enjoyed working on that project (in Winthrop)."

In general, what can Stoneham expect in their new high school?

■ More square feet for class rooms. Current classes are roughly 800 square feet according to Macero. New classes will be 900-1,400 square feet with science labs that are roughly 1,400 square feet.

■ Brighter classrooms with more windows. "It's all cement, all bricks," said Macero of the current high school. "Most buildings now when you walk in, there's light that covers every aspect of your building."

■ For entire community, not just students. "It's really a community building in the sense that we try to welcome as many town and community groups," said principal Donna Cargill. "For example we had the community chorus that met in our choral room. We used to have an evening school. We had an active a very active evening school. Woodworking, quilting, stained glass was offered."

■ Improved STEM area. "Our science, technology, engineering space, were not designed for [2018]. Who would have thought it should be designed for that in 1968 when they built this," said Macero. "But today when they build new schools they don't build schools with the old school philosophy. They build it toward the innovations of today's world."

■ Rethinking old ideas like ... "When we build a new high school the library may not be the size that library currently is right now," said Macero. "The library may be a smaller size ... they want us to look down the road of what the school's going to look like in 50 years, not what it looked like the last 50 years."

When all is said and done it comes back to the community, as was the case of the Central Middle School in 2012, in the form of a debt exclusion override. The Select Board needs a 2/3rds vote to present the debt exclusion to the voters and then the project needs a majority approval at the ballot to go forward. As MSBA board member Matt Deninger said, "You have our support. You also need your voters support."

MSBA contributed 52 percent of the middle school project with the remainder paid for with the debt exclusion override. The town is awaiting the reimbursement number on the high school.

"I think they're supportive," said Macero of the Stoneham community. "The reason I say that is that if you went to the town meeting last year, I know there were some big questions about the trash fees, and both sides of the argument agreed when they would talk about the high school, that we need a high school. Nobody was saying that we don't need it. You could hear the tone of the community. Being here a year, anybody I've spoken to has asked me, when are we getting a new high school?"

Now, after a long wait, Macero has an answer.