The Robinson School Building Committee voted to move forward with the Abbot School site for a potential future project to renovate or rebuild an elementary school on Tuesday, Oct. 27.
During the meeting, Jenni Katajamaki of Lavallee Brensinger Architects presented three remaining options for the future elementary school. They included an Abbot School addition or renovation, rebuilding the Abbot School, or building an entirely new school on Farmer Way. Following the vote, Farmer Way is no longer considered as a future project site.
Site selection overview
The RSBC voted unanimously to move forward with the Abbot School site due to logistical and geographical constraints with Farmer Way.
Following a recent vote during its Oct. 19 meeting, the School Committee will move forward with a 705 enrollment scenario, which will advance plans to combine two elementary schools and transition the district toward a K-5 model.
If the RSBC were to move forward with Farmer Way under the 705 option, the Abbot School and Robinson School would both have had to close. Prospective students living near the location would instead go to either the Day School or Miller School.
“Because of this very difficult redistricting impact, our opinion is that Farmer Way does make sense as the site for this project. And that is reflected in our evaluation criteria,” Katajamaki said.
“Farmer way would still require us to divide one of the elementary schools,” Westford Public Schools Superintendent Christopher Chew added. “The Abbot site allows this because of where it is located in town, but for Farmer Way, the GIA specialists were not able to have that work.”
With this in mind, the RSBC collectively agreed using an already existing, centralized location would make the most sense for a future project.
Farmer Way was the cheapest of the considered options before the Tuesday, Oct. 27. vote, since a school would have been built on an already empty site as opposed to renovation or adding onto an existing building.
However, RSBC Vice-Chair Lindsay Richard emphasized that the proposed costs and building designs are still in the conceptual stage.
Chin Lin, Senior Project Manager at The Vertex Companies, added that the millennium building would be demolished under the currently considered Abbot options, and the cost of that will be reimbursed by the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
“After six years on the School Committee, what I hear a lot about are where the schools are located,” RSBC Chair Valery Young said. “Farmer Way demonstrates to us that we didn’t take the easy options in front of us, and really did the due diligence to evaluate and rank them.”
What will happen to Abbot, Robinson?
After further discussion, the RSBC decided to re-add the formerly vetoed Abbot option, since it is now the sole site of consideration.
This means that of the three scenarios still remaining the Abbot School will either receive a renovation or addition, or be rebuilt in some capacity.
Following the vote, the RSBC discussed the remaining options for the Abbot School in addition to what other options would be available for the Robinson School, which will close in the event of a building project.
“Nobody likes a vacant building, so I do think there’s due diligence to do some sort of exploration on both sides of Abbot and Robinson,” Robinson School Principal Kevin Lacoste said. “I think the community needs to know what some potential options might be.”
In early 2027 there will be a committee formed by the town to study what will happen to vacated buildings, such as a hypothetical, vacant Robinson School, as part of the documentation required to submit to the MSBA.
In an addition or renovation scenario, the Abbot School would still need to meet the current energy code. This means a deep energy retrofit, window replacement, roof and wall insulation and electrical replacement.
“We would still have to fully renovate the building, like that gut scenario we are talking about, to accommodate [for the energy code],” Katajamaki said.
There is no scenario in which Abbot could be reused in an appropriate way without triggered major code upgrades,” Richard said. “We are trying to optimize the taxpayer money into a project. And so we are looking at all of the moving pieces with town needs, district office needs, school project needs, MSBA reimbursements. And so taking a step back, we need the time to make sure we’re understanding all of the inputs that go into this process.”
Lin also reminded the committee that as part of the MSBA project requirements, this building has to be able to serve the Westford community for the next 50 years. This will be taken into consideration by RSBC and the School Committee.
“The MSBA does want us to be thorough,” Chew said. “But having looked at the 18 different proposals at the beginning and then going down to [three], there was real potential for each site …We want people to know that we’ve been looking with fidelity at all of these options carefully.”
Future meetings
The next RSBC meeting will be on Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 12 p.m. on Zoom. The preferred solution vote will take place during its Tuesday, Nov. 24 meeting at 12 p.m., also on Zoom. At the time of reporting, registration links are not available for either meeting.
The next RSBC community forum will be held in-person on Tuesday, Nov. 17 at Stony Brook Middle School at 6:30 p.m. Residents may also attend virtually and register in advance at this link.
RSBC also added an additional community forum to be held virtually on Friday, Nov. 20 at 12 p.m. Register in advance here.
How did we get here?
Alongside Robinson, the Abbot, and Day schools are “aging buildings” that require “major capital repair.” Chew stated that these three schools have “inequitable learning environments” compared to their counterparts.
Robinson requires the greatest repair due to its outdated open-suite floor plan, which is “a major educational and facility challenge” according to the RSBC’s official slides. Its existing facilities also do not support the district’s current strategic improvement plan to ensure educational equity across all school curriculums.
The RSBC and School Committee are working with the Massachusetts School Building Authority to identify the most cost effective and educationally appropriate solution for the three aging elementary schools. The
MSBA’s mission is to work with and support local communities in the design and construction of new schools.
“Their focus when they invite school districts in, is to identify the most cost effective and educationally appropriate solutions to the problems that have been identified [within certain schools],” Chew said. “Their process is very well-defined. They require us to examine a long range of possibilities and opportunities in order to best address the identifying concerns.”
It has also committed to reimbursing 48% of eligible costs for RSBC’s construction project. RSBC also received funds from the spring 2024 Westford Town Meeting for the feasibility study it is currently conducting.
“Not all costs are eligible for reimbursement, but the 40 percent of the eligible costs will remain at the baseline,” Chew said. “And that percentage can only increase as certain design elements come into play.”
For more information about the Robinson School Building Project and the changing districts, read our previous coverage or visit the RSBC’s official website, which contains resources including a projected timeline of events, frequently asked questions, recordings of previous meetings, official slideshows and more. Questions may be emailed to info@robinsonschoolproject.com
