SWAMPSCOTT —A number of residents in town have formed a group to oppose the proposed new school on the site of the current Stanley Elementary School.
The group “Save Our Schools” has several complaints, but the main ones are traffic on and around Whitman Road, where the school is located; environmental concerns; and lack of transparency in the proposal process, said member Gail Brock.
“Nobody in Swampscott would deny that we need new schools. However, the Stanley School plan is going to put two schools on a small space where one school currently exists,” Brock said. “The ramifications of the traffic and the air quality and the environmental impacts are enormous. A lot of people are also concerned about the process by which they arrived at this decision, because we’ve been in a pandemic now for a long time, and a lot of people know nothing about this proposal.”
The town’s School Building Committee has proposed one universal elementary school on the Stanley site, divided into a lower school for grades kindergarten to 2, and an upper school for grades 3 to 4. The project originally had an estimated price tag of $110 million, but that estimate has now dropped to approximately $97.5 million, and the town is also hoping for partial reimbursement from the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
Currently, Swampscott has three elementary schools: Hadley Elementary, built in 1911; Clarke School, built in 1952; and Stanley, built in 1929.
In 2014, a similar proposal was voted down by Town Meeting — something town officials across the Select Board, School Committee, Finance Committee and other bodies hope doesn’t happen again this fall.
“The most important message is that Swampscott needs new elementary schools,” said SBC Chair Suzanne Wright. “They are past their useful life. They are too small. The spaces weren’t designed for how you deliver education in the 21st century.”
Brock said that most of the environmental concerns come from the proximity of the school to Ewing Woods, wetlands, and several vernal pools on the property of the next-door Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Lynn, through which the town hopes to route exiting traffic.
Wright acknowledged these worries, but said that the proposed building would not be any closer to the woods than the existing school, and the town has done, and will commission, future environmental studies to anticipate any negative impacts of the project.
“The last thing we want to do is anything worse to the environment. That’s why this site was chosen,” she said. “Building two schools on two separate locations takes more land. We’re doing everything we can to mitigate any issues and making sure we’re following all the laws.”
Brock said that her group would like to see the reports to ensure that the town is doing all it can to mitigate any environmental impacts.
In addition, she says, the group opposes the size of the proposed building, which is designed for 900 students, close to 200 more than Swampscott’s current elementary population, and worries about the financial impact on town residents.
Currently, Brock said, the group is continuing to spread the word about their opposition, and are interviewing attorneys for potential legal representation.
Meanwhile, the town is continuing to work on the idea, and submitted a proposal to the MSBA on May 5 for potential reimbursement money.
Wright said that there is no better time to build the school than now, when tax rates are low and the town is ready.
“A ‘no’ vote is not a solution,” she said. “It just kicks the can down the road and the building gets more expensive.”