Westwood school project gets thumbs up from state
COURTESY OF WESTWOOD PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Westwood has gotten the green light – and a commitment of up to $18.2 million in reimbursement funding – from the Massachusetts School Building Authority for a new elementary school. The MSBA, which accepted Westwood into its program in 2018, approved the town’s project on April 14, subject to the town approving the project at Fall 2021 Town Meeting.
“This is a huge step,” said Maya Plotkin, chair of the Westwood School Building Committee. “We have had strong support from the community, including the Select Board, the Town Administrator, and other town groups and boards. In addition, residents have been fantastic about staying engaged and providing feedback on this project.”
State calls out district, wants change
Leigh Blander / Special to the Swampscott Reporter
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Deep discrepancies in the number of economically disadvantaged students across Swampscott’s three elementary schools exist and the state wants the town to take action to fix it, school officials say.
“It is extreme from what they see across the commonwealth,” said Schools Superintendent Pamela Angelakis, “so we have to start doing something about it now. My team and I have been thinking about…is there a way, as we hopefully move toward twin schools and a new school building project, that we start to level that out.”
MSBA invites Elmwood Elementary School into Eligibility Period wickedlocal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wickedlocal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Mary Ellen Gambon
For the past nine years, former Stoughton Select Board Chair Board member Bob O’Regan has tried to place together a jigsaw puzzle of complex pieces for residents and commercial development.
In a recent interview with the
Journal & Sun, O’Regan, who decided not to run for reelection in the recent Town Election, said he originally was called to public service out of family responsibility. When O’Regan’s son was in the third grade, his best friend left the school system because the family felt the schools were declining.
“I looked around and saw there was quite a bit of that going around,” O’Regan said. “When people leave, that’s when you have instability in the community. I’m of the view that the best thing we can do is have excellent schools. And we do that by fixing the downtown and improving the tax base to fund them.”
COURTESY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL BUILDING AUTHORITY
Massachusetts School Building Authority Board of Directors recently announced the town of Stoughton has been invited into the Eligibility Period for the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s school building grant program for South Elementary School.
The South School was built in 1958 and was last renovated in 1967. The current 38,000 square foot school educates approximately 250 students in grades kindergarten through fifth. The building was constructed before the Americans with Disability Act was signed into law in 1990 and is non-ADA compliant. The cafeteria is the only accessible public space in the building due to the building having five different levels connected by steeply sloped ramps.