Bob Cotton is an At Large member of the Concord School Board.
As a member of the Concord School Board, I have been asked several times in recent days why I voted to locate the new middle school at the Broken Ground site in East Concord. First, let me say that the views I express here are my own and not those of the Concord School Board or of its other members.
Let me also comment that the decision and vote on the siting of the new middle school was the most consequential and difficult decision I have had to make during my tenure on the school board. As a member of the Finance Committee and the Capital Facilities Committee of the board, I have spent many, many hours over the past two years in addition to those spent at full board meetings listening to testimony from interested citizens, consulting with district staff and faculty, gathering information from our architects and consultants and reviewing potential plans and reports. And, still, the decision was not an easy one.
Ultimately, my decision to go with the Broken Ground site over the current Rundlett site was based on several factors, including cost, impact on students, space constraints at the current location and the ability to expand at Broken Ground, access to athletic facilities, potential for outdoor learning opportunities, anticipated future growth in Concord and equity concerns related to both access to the location and the potential to add services and facilities to a historically underserved part of the city.
With respect to cost, impact on taxpayers is and should be a key focus. The school district’s consultants have advised the board that the cost of building at the current Rundlett site would be over $5 million higher than building a comparable building at the Broken Ground site due to the cost of staging for construction and removal costs of the current building once the new school is built.
While some citizens have questioned the numbers and posed various alternatives, it is my view that at least directionally the consultants are right, and it would be more expensive to build at the current site. As a board, we need to keep the cost of the project as low as possible while delivering a quality school to the city’s children that will serve them for generations to come. Our next step in this regard is to sharpen our pencils and reduce the overall construction cost of the project while still making the school as efficient and effective as possible.
Another deciding factor for me was the likely effect on students. The students who will be affected by the building of the new school are the same students in grades K-3 who have already been significantly impacted by school disruptions during COVID and its aftermath. Some of the plans for possible siting at the Rundlett site show the new school being constructed within 20 feet of the existing school while children are attempting to learn in the existing building.
Additionally, because of longer construction time due to site constraints and the need to demolish or repurpose the old school once the new one is built, it is estimated that it will take an additional 1 ½ years to complete construction compared to the time needed at the Broken Ground site. We need to reduce the impact on children who have already been adversely affected.
Rundlett’s athletic fields would be unusable once construction started at the site if rebuilding there were to occur. Currently, both Rundlett students and Concord High School students use the fields for practice and games. Longer construction time at Rundlett would further exacerbate the loss of the field space. And, the city and school district are currently exploring significant changes and improvements to Memorial Field which will be wonderful once completed but will further diminish available athletic space potentially for years. On the other hand, building at the Broken Ground space would allow for the construction of a track and fields dedicated to middle school use and available for the citizens of East Concord during off-school hours.
Building at Broken Ground is anticipated to impact approximately 8 acres of the 59-acre school district property, which property abuts additional conservation land to the north. Not only does the site offer the opportunity for future expansion of the school should the need arise, which the Rundlett site does not, but it also affords students a fantastic opportunity for outdoor learning and recreation with numerous trails to explore and different habitats and topographies to study.
I note that the current Rundlett location is situated in the South End of Concord where there is little likelihood of increases in housing stock, population growth or increases in student numbers. In contrast, the growth in Concord appears to be happening in East Concord and the northern portion of the city. The new middle school is a citywide school, not a neighborhood school. It will serve the children of Concord for decades to come. Doesn’t it make sense to place it where the increasing population of tomorrow is going to be?
My decision also comes partly from a desire to ensure that all of the children of Concord have equitable access to school district facilities. As previously noted, the middle school is a citywide school just as Concord High School is and as such serves all of the students of Concord whether they live in the South End, the West Side, the Beaver Meadow area or on the Heights or East Side. Given that the high school and CRTC are already located on the West Side along with Memorial Field, it seems equitable to me to place the middle school on the East Side where the population is growing but which has historically been underserved.
As a school board member, I believe my duty is to seek to ensure the best possible education for the students of Concord at the most cost-effective price for the taxpayers of the school district. Part of my job is to listen to the concerns and opinions of others and to seek to learn and discern the facts relating to any given issue. I believe as an elected board member that the electorate has placed their trust in me to do what in my judgment is best based on those facts. I have attempted to do that in my middle school decision.