School 'Yes' Vote 'A Golden Moment In Time For Swampscott'

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — For seven years since the stinging defeat of the Swampscott's last elementary school proposal, town and school officials worked with focus and design groups, the school building and town finance committees, and dozens of dedicated residents to help ensure that the next time a new school was brought before voters the hopes and dreams of the town's youngest and future residents would not suffer the same fate.

On Tuesday night, those efforts paid off with an overwhelming majority in the vote to approve a $98 million debt exclusion to build twin K-4 schools on the site of the current Stanley Elementary School. The town has secured $34 million in state reimbursements — leaving the cost to residents about $64 million.

"This is a really wonderful moment in time when one generation supports another generation," Swampscott Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald told Patch on Wednesday. "Where citizens really connect to each other through time. I know it's awful hard sometimes for people to make this choice. But Swampscott citizens gathered together over the last couple of years and made it happen.

"It's a golden moment in time for Swampscott."

Fitzgerald credited the leadership of Swampscott Superintendent of Schools Pam Angelakis and her "powerful educational vision for our school children" for helping unify the town in support of the project.

Unofficial results from Tuesday night had 65 percent of voters supporting the school expenditure, with 35 percent voting against the debt exclusion.

"If you can, you want to have as much of a unified core of momentum as you can for something like this," Fitzgerald said. "There's always going to be some folks who perhaps have a different point of view. That is the charm of democracy."

Fitzgerald also noted the town's financial discipline and not regularly raising taxes in recent years for helping create a climate that was more amendable to a major capital expenditure than may have existed in 2014 when the last school vote suffered a crushing defeat.

Tuesday's vote essentially authorized a budget for the new school to replace what is currently the fourth-oldest set of elementary school buildings in the state. Hadley School was built in 1911, while Stanley dates back to 1923 and the "new" Clarke School was built in 1952.

The new school recommendation would include K-2 school and Grades 3-4 school, along with shared resource, meeting and event spaces. Town officials said last week they are working with the Universalist Unitarian Church on the acquisition of land necessary for a required access road through a third-party mediator.

Fitzgerald once final plans are in place it will take about two years of design and construction before the new school opens.

The working belief is that the school committee will then turn over the Hadley School to the town for repurposing. A committee has already been working for the past year on alternative uses of the building and grounds – which a vote of a special town meeting last month determined cannot be used for market-value housing.

Alternative ideas included senior housing, mixed retail and a boutique hotel.

"We will continue to advance those conversations and seek to have the future of Hadley School contribute to the civic life in many ways that are the same wonderful way it has as a school over the last 100 years," Fitzgerald said.

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)

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