Lincoln School Building Committee

The following motion under Article 10 passed at today's town meeting by a larger than 2/3 voice vote.

Moved: That the Town appropriate the sum of $17,700 from the Town's Debt Stabilization Fund, established pursuant to the March 26, 2011 Town Meeting, Article 19 in accordance with Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 40, Section 5B, for the purposes of conducting a school feasibility study evaluation to address facilities issues of the Lincoln School, including all costs incidental and related thereto; provided that the money be spent if the Town is invited by the Massachusetts School Building Authority to enter the feasibility study phase of the Massachusetts School Building Authority process.

Community members are encouraged to attend the March 21 School Committee Meeting.

As you know, we are at a crossroads in the school building project process. The School Committee will be considering and voting on a motion to disband, for now, the School Building Committee. Meanwhile the School Committee will draft and submit a new Statement of Interest to the MSBA reflecting the new community input. Attached is the memo that will be in the School Committee packet on March 21.

Community Forum on the New Statement of Interest

As part of the March 21 meeting, we will have a 1-hour community forum for people to ask questions about the submittal of the new Statement of Interest to the MSBA, the upcoming warrant at Town Meeting and the process as we currently understand it. This portion of the meeting is scheduled to start at 8:15pm, and we will discuss the memo and vote at the start of that hour.

The attached letter was received from the MSBA on March 12.

"....The project as proposed in the letter is different from the one proposed previously by the district and reviewed and approved by the MSBA's Board of Directors. As indicated in the MSBA December 5, 2012 letter to Lincoln and confirmed in the MSBA's conversation with the District last week, if a different project was determined to be of interest to the community, then a new Statement of Interest would need to be filed and the District would need to await a new invitation from the MSBA to enter the feasibility study phase of the MSBA's process. If the MSBA Board of Directors were to issue a new invitation, the MSBA would require the District to start the process at the beginnining..."

The full letter can be downloaded below.

The Lincoln School Committee and School Building Committee have sent a letter to the MSBA. The full letter can be downloaded below.

"...The Lincoln School Committee and School Building Committee are requesting that the MSBA review the L-shaped conflguraůon. lt is our belief that this concept fulfills the SOI that was originally submitted to the MSBA in 2008, and ís educationally sound. Attached is a floor plan and a comparison of the concept to 'the approved project...."

Attached are materials that were distributed and discussed at the February 6 meeting, including the slides, the survey results, and the survey crosstab.

The second and final Community Charrette for the town to discuss and evaluate scenarios for the Lincoln school building will be this Thursday, January 31, at 7:00 PM at the Reed Gym. Public participation is important; please attend to help determine the future of the Lincoln School.

The remaining meeting schedule for up to February 6 is sumarized below.

Thank you to all who participated in the January 27 Charrette. There will be another charrette on Thursday January 31 at 7PM at the Reed Gym, and all are encouraged to attend. Attached are materials that were distributed at the Sunday charrette, including the evaluation criteria and drawings, timelines, and other information on several alternatives for the school building.

A town-wide survey on the school building has been mailed to all Lincoln residents, and it is available for download below.

The survey is also available as an online form that can be filled out until February 1, here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LincolnSchoolBuildingProject.

The survey is short and should only take a few minutes to complete: please help the school building committee by sharing your preferences.

Materials for the January 22 planning meeting are attached. The meeting location is the Hartwell Multipurpose Room, at 7:30 PM, and the purpose of the meeting is to plan for the school building design charrettes.

On January 17, Fincom presented an analysis of the financial impact of school building needs. The presentation is attached below.