Nauset Committee Members Skeptical Of Elementary School Study

BREWSTER – Do local towns already know the end of the movie before the opening credits roll?

Some members of the Nauset Regional School Committee were concerned that the result of the report town managers hope to fund with a regionalization and efficiency state grant is predetermined — an efficient regionalization of elementary schools.

“To me it’s a foregone conclusion to regionalize the elementary schools,” Judith Schumacher, the regional school committee vice chair, said during last Thursday’s meeting. “There have been people coming to me about closing down the middle school and I don’t want this study to drive that,” she added.

“There shouldn’t be any preconceived notion (of results). This is about data mining,” Superintendent Brooke Clenchy said.

Brewster and Orleans Town Managers Peter Lombardi and Kim Newman were there to present each town’s point of view in applying for the grant. Lombardi said even if the four towns don’t get the $125,000 grant, it would be worth the towns’ trouble to conduct the study.

“We’re not chasing the grant,” Lombardi said. “This is an important initiative whether or not we get the grant. If we don’t, I’d be interested in bringing an article to town meeting.”

The motivation is looming capital expenditures.

“Brewster and Orleans have $50 million decisions to make around their elementary schools,” Lombardi said. “We shouldn’t look at the Brewster situation discretely when our neighbor next door is doing the same thing. So our goal is to make sure there is coordination between the towns.”

Brewster faces significant repairs to the roof and air conditioning system that would trigger an upgrade to code for the Stony Brook Elementary School. Orleans is further down the road in upgrading their elementary school, and Clenchy said Wellfleet is close behind.

Newman said she’s availed herself of similar grants in previous jobs to look at regionalizing municipal services.

“A lot of the fear is based on the name of the grant, but I’ve used it for a number of things,” Newman said. “We want everybody on board. We don’t want to go through this and have some folks say we didn’t want to do this.”

She said it was the towns’ responsibility to examine options.

“In order to help our communities we need data to do that,” Newman said. “In the short time that I’ve been here, I’ve heard a hundred different solutions that someone thinks should happen. A third party can help us make a decision. We recognize we don’t have on committees or staff the expertise to make certain decisions. I think it will give us a place to start thinking about a plan.”

Lombardi and Newman wanted to emphasize that there is no conclusions baked into the proposed study of the schools.

“We don’t know what the findings will be,” Lombardi said. “It’s more looking at the information and giving us scenarios. It will be a multistep process and this is the first. We may all walk away from the table or say this is interesting to us.”

The four towns will apply for the funds by early February. Once the state decides if they should be awarded the grant it would take 18 months to finalize a report. The study by a consulting firm would examine staffing, budgets, the condition of the facilities, local demographics and such without recommending a plan or course of action.

“We want to talk to you about including the middle school in the study. We know it is an older building that will need capital investment at some time in the future,” Lombardi told the committee. They’ve also spoken with local town school committees, which Lombardi said were supportive.

“The idea is to get on the other side of this so we can make a thoughtful policy decision. We recognize there are a lot of stakeholders at the table,” he said. “This is really about long-range planning and trying to coordinate across four communities, which is a difficult thing.”

“The benefit of receiving funding is it does tap a process that’s neutral for the communities involved,” Newman said.

“It recognizes the communities don’t have the internal resources to do this sort of thing,” Lombardi added.

But some committee members were concerned the study might be too tightly focused on financial efficiencies.

“What concerns me a little bit is the expectation of different people and what they want to see come out of this,” Schumacher said. “I would hate to see the tail wagging the dog here. There are our financial concerns and our educational concerns and we’re only looking at part of it here.”

“It’s hard not to look at this and feel there’s an agenda to find significant cost savings either through closing of schools or joining of schools,” committee member Josh Stewart said. He suggested the committee should get a lot more details about future costs at the middle school, something Newman also wanted to know.

“I don’t think any of us want any surprises,” Schumacher said. “Orleans already has information on their elementary school. Brewster is going to have theirs. So what is the detailed data you’re looking for?”

“It’ll look at the location, demographic data, age of the buildings and help provide options,” said Newman. “What it does not do is provide a plan that is enacted. I have no set destination at the end of this.”

“In Brewster we’ve talked about consolidating the elementary schools for a decade or two but we’ve never acted,” Lombardi said.

“We’re trying not to look at the elementary schools in silos,” he added. “What the funding is about is looking across the four towns.”

“Data is not information,” Schumacher said. “It’s a disorganized set of facts. It only becomes information when you organize it and put it in context.”

The town managers want the data to be available.

“When the time comes to bring a major capital item to town meeting, the residents will ask hard questions about whether we did due diligence,” Lombardi said.

“This is not intended to look at educational needs. It is intended to look at facility needs,” Newman emphasized.

That was the issue for some.

“I get concerned looking at this [that] we’re looking at structure and not education,” committee member Chris Easley said. “It would be easier if we had a vision for education and fit that in. We need a bigger study rather than a building study.”

The town managers noted that further study was possible.

“We have major decisions on capital investments in schools,” Lombardi concluded. “The idea is to have all the information in one place and work together through the decision process and not be arguing about the data and facts.”