Hopkinton Residents In Favor of Town-Wide Schools

Survey results show town residents are against districting and want to make sure any solution is a solid educational investment.

Survey data showed 61 percent of voters are likely to be against any form of dividing the town’s elementary schools based on location. “Districting needs to go away, the data shows that it simply will not work,” Paul Flaxman said. Flaxman is a Hopkinton resident who worked with the school department to create and analyze the Center School planning survey. Districting however, isn’t the only issue that residents care about according to Flaxman. Through his data analysis, Flaxman was able to group the responses based on which ones appeared to have similar voter interest in them. For instance, many respondents who were worried about the total cost for the town also wanted the solution to use land that the town currently owns. “It’s not so …

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Committee Will Update Statement to School Building Authority

In case you missed last night's School Committee meeting, here are five things the board discussed.

The School Committee meeting Thursday night lasted for more than three hours. Below are five topics that earned the most discussion.  1. As a part of the ongoing project of dealing with the Center School, Superintendent Jonathan Landman announced that he will not be recertifying the previous statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority. Landman said he would update and resubmit the previous statement to fall in line with feedback from community discussions. Landman will present a draft at one of the upcoming meetings in December. 2. Jean Vazza, of the Hopkinton Youth Services Department, and Danielle Petrucci, wellness coordinator of Hopkinton Public Schools, presented the committee with some of the results from the…

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Center School Project Will Get a Fresh Look

After a meeting with the MSBA Wednesday, the School Committee will review the original statement of interest regarding the Center School.

As part of Hopkinton’s push to improve the quality of its public school system, the task of improving the Center School will move forward with officials taking a few steps back. At their meeting yesterday, the MSBA and town officials discussed what the next step is, and it seems that the best option is to re-examine the statement of interest and decide if the town wants to continue with the original statement, or draft a new one. According to School Committee Chairman Jean Bertschmann, the statement of interest is what starts the whole process. “The statement of interest is not a solution; it’s an identification of the problem that you want to address,” she said. The choice to continue with the original statement will need to be made by …

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Patch Facts

5 Things You Need to Know Today: Nov. 9

Soccer and the New England Patriots top today's "5 Things."

Our weekday morning column, 5 Things You Need to Know, provides you with information that can help you plan your day and give you some fodder for water cooler conversations. 1. The School Committee and Board of Selectmen will meet with the MSBA at the State House in Boston at 11 a.m. They will discuss what the next step is for the Center School project.  2. Author Vin Femia will be at Hopkinton Public Library at 7 p.m. to discuss his book, Patriot Pride. The book looks at the history of the New England Patriots over the past 50 years. 3. Tonight is the Middle School Soccer Banquet. The banquet will be at 6 p.m. at the middle school. 4. The first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) will take place today at 2 p.m. This …

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Officials Prepare to Meet School Building Authority

School leaders want to know how they can balance community desires with their wish to stay on the school funding list.

Months after the town voted against building a new school and separating elementary schools by neighborhood, the School Committee will be meeting with the Massachusetts School Building Authority to discuss how to keep the funding the town was offered. The public meeting will be 11 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9,  in room 511 of the State House in Boston. Officials hope to learn at the meeting what they need to do so they don't lose their place in the funding line.  Based on the plan in March, the town would be responsible for the majority of the proposed $38 million dollar construction, but would receive more than $14 million from the MSBA.  The Center School, which the new building would have replaced, is the biggest concern in the district; …

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School Committee Wants Your Feedback

After three meetings dedicated to discussing the possible changes involving the town's elementary school structure, the School Committee is reviewing the results and expects to release them to the public by early December.

Press Release submitted by the School Committee. HOPKINTON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PLANNING A THANK-YOU FROM THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE and SUPERINTENDENT The School Committee and Superintendent are pleased to report that more than 70 citizens participated in last week's three workshops regarding planning for our elementary schools. The input collected at the workshops has been transcribed, and an analysis is underway. The raw data will be reviewed by the School Committee and Board of Selectmen, and will be shared with the MSBA. The School Committee would like to continue to gather feedback, and will report the results as quickly as possible to the workshop participants, as well as the community at large via local media and the school district website…

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MSBA Responds to Last Thursday’s School Committee Meeting

The MSBA wishes to clarify who canceled last Thursday’s joint meeting.

Matt Donovan, Massachusetts School Building Authority(MSBA) member , responded to comments made at the School Committee meeting last Thursday night, October 20. He expressed his support for the Hopkinton community but wished to set the record straight. “We don’t want to get into a he said she said,” Donovan said “but we want to clarify the record.” He went on to say that it was not the MSBA but Superintendent Jonathan Landman who could not attend last Thursday's joint meeting scheduled at Senator Spilka’s office. “We did not cancel the meeting.”  Donovan said.  “The Superintendent had a scheduling conflict.” Landman responded by saying that it has been an arduous but worthwhile process in scheduling this meeting. “There are a lot of busy …

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MSBA Meeting was a No Go

While the School Committee was unable to meet with the MSBA, the committee’s concerns grow that they are on a different page from the MSBA.

Progress for the problem of the Center School was a priority topic at the School Committee Meeting last night. The School Committee and Board of Selectman met last Sunday to discuss the situation and had scheduled a tentative date of Thursday, October 20 for a meeting with the MSBA but the MSBA declined.  The date and time were not convenient for them.  Senator Karen Spilka and Representative Carolyn Dykema were also to be in attendance. In the meantime, the selectmen and the school committee have hashed out a few details.  Both groups want to identify the parameters in which the MSBA will still allow the town to use the current grant.  In addition, both groups wish to create a plan for community outreach that will allow them to get …

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MSBA Responds to the Hopkinton Schools

The MSBA will not support a K-3 school on Fruit St with the existing building design.

The MSBA formally responded to a letter written on August 16 by the Hopkinton Schools last Friday.   The school committee letter to the Massachusetts School Building Committee (MSBA) asked if the 14 million dollar grant money that was slated for the K-5 school on Fruit St. could be re-purposed for a K-3 school in the same location with the same design. The answer from the MSBA was no. While the MSBA would like to keep searching for a solution to the Center School, the organization does not support using the existing building plan for a K-3 school. “The District’s recommendation for a preferred schematic was based on a design associated with a K-5 grade structure,” the letter stated, “and this grade structure played a significant role in …

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