School Committee Letter to Parks and Rec Urge Inclusion of Cricket Field in Hillside School Feasibility Study

Daniel E. Gutekanst, Needham Superintendent of Schools, sent out a letter to parents Monday outlining the School Committee’s wish to include Cricket Field in the feasibility study for the Hillside School construction. The letter was sent as a request from School Committee chairman Joe Barnes.

The issue has divided the town, with groups like Save Cricket Field and Fair Needham collecting petition signatures opposing the inclusion of the location or supporting it. Fair Needham has 387 signatures as of Monday night while Save Cricket Field has 374 on their online petitions alone.

“Cricket Field was never a genuine option,” said Save Cricket Field supporter Susan Owen who noted that the field is under the jurisdiction of the Park and Recreation Commission and therefore can only be studied with their permission. “There is no feasibility in studying an ‘option’ that is not a realistic possibility. It is a waste of taxpayer money.”

Barnes disagrees. Read his letter to Michael J. Retzky, chairman of Needham Park and Recreation Commission below:

Dear Mr. Retzky:

On behalf of the School Committee I write to seek permission from the Park and Recreation Commission to include the Cricket Field in the anticipated feasibility study for the Hillside School.

The School Committee acknowledges that Cricket Field is under the jurisdiction of the Park and Recreation Commission, and we recognize it is important and necessary to secure your board’s permission so that the anticipated study can provide the Town of Needham and its citizens with as much information as possible on options for Hillside in the event the school cannot be rebuilt at its current location on Glen Gary Road. The School Committee believes a thorough and robust feasibility study will benefit the Town, its taxpayers, and, ultimately, the children of the Hillside community. We respectfully seek your support.

Key issues identified in the 2012 prefeasibility study suggest that the inclusion of the Hillside campus, DeFazio, and Cricket Field in a feasibility study would help inform decision-making should we be accepted into the MSBA’s process:

• Reconstructing or rebuilding Hillside on its current site is the stated and most desirable goal for the School Committee and the Hillside community. The site is under the jurisdiction of the School Committee, it has been the recognized neighborhood school for over 50 years, and it sits on a beautiful parcel, ideal for an educational setting. Keeping the school in its present location will be the focus of a feasibility study. However, significant conditions and challenges exist on the Hillside campus that must be more fully examined as part of a feasibility study. According to the prefeasibility study the site’s complicated environmental issues, including the ongoing monitoring of TCE levels and the removal and/or mitigation of soil during construction may require additional and expensive work. In addition, the site, although large at 24.6 acres, only has 5.8 acres available for a building, parking, and playfields. Finally, the school’s current access/egress, parking, and bus/parent drop off is unacceptable and often unsafe due to site and driveway constraints. A school and community partnership that •creates excited learners •inspires excellence •fosters integrity.

• Overall costs are another consideration for the community. The costs identified in the prefeasibility study suggest that rebuilding at Hillside and providing temporary and off-campus modular classrooms for students is the most expensive option. Dore and Whittier’s study of DeFazio outlines the cost of modular classrooms to be approximately $17 million (2012 dollars). A new school built on a separate parcel would mean that Hillside’s students could remain in that school until the new one is constructed, avoiding additional costs for modular classrooms, transportation, staff, etc. A comprehensive feasibility study can provide a more detailed cost analysis and identify concerns and compromises the community should consider. After understanding the costs, of course, the community may decide that it is more important to rebuild Hillside at its current site rather than disrupting another neighborhood or impacting the character, design, and composition of Town parks. However, without a complete cost and logistical analysis like a comprehensive feasibility study would provide, the community will not have had an opportunity to understand the potential costs and tradeoffs of various ideas and options.

• The likely disruption and possible dissolution of the Hillside community is of real concern to the School Committee and Hillside parents, and it may, unfortunately, even be inevitable. If the feasibility study concludes that the best option for the school is to relocate it due to the costs involved and other logistical obstacles, it would be important to study an option like Cricket Field that keeps the school within the area so the community can keep its commitment to neighborhood schools that are within walking distance for as many as students as possible. Only having DeFazio as an option means the loss of a neighborhood school, redistricting throughout the school system, and increased busing costs among other concerns. Cricket Field is not necessarily an ideal solution because it is closer to Eliot than the current Hillside campus; but it provides a neighborhood school option that DeFazio does not, and it keeps the Hillside community intact.

• If the feasibility study concludes that moving Hillside is the best option, this will open up the Hillside campus to other potential uses, including use as a park, ball fields, or open space. According to the prefeasibility study playing fields and open space would be increased beyond what exists today if the Hillside campus is vacated because a Cricket school would also have ball fields in addition to the fields at Hillside. 

Finally, the School Committee understands that including Cricket Field in a study is fraught with concern, anxiety, and problems—both for the Park and Recreation Commission which has jurisdiction and has been a trusted steward of open space and parkland in our community and for other members of the community who may not wish to contemplate a park being displaced by a school.

The School Committee’s role and responsibility is unique in Needham: We must identify educational needs for Needham’s 5,500 students and then advocate for the largest capital projects the Town ever contemplates. We appreciate the incredible patience and generosity of Needham’s citizens who have extended themselves many times in recent years to support overrides and debt exclusions to fund vital school building projects. We know we must still advocate for additional school building projects, and we wish only to ensure that we have been responsible to the taxpayers by studying and presenting educationally and fiscally sound proposals that will meet our students’ and the community’s needs for many years to come.

We appreciate and value the Park and Recreation Commission’s partnership on current (e.g., Newman fields) and past (Field of Dreams) projects and look forward to an even more collaborative relationship in the future. It is in this spirit that we hope you will consider this request to include Cricket Field as part of the Hillside feasibility study.

Michael Greis and I will be happy to discuss this request with you further at an upcoming Park and Recreation Commission meeting. In advance, and on behalf of the School Committee, thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Joseph P. Barnes