From Susan Maritan –
Community Invited to Learn About New School
The School Building Committee (SBC) is inviting all residents to attend a public forum for the proposed new elementary school on the Wheelock campus. The forum is scheduled for Sunday, June 13 at 4:00 at Dale Street School. Community members may participate in-person at Dale or may choose to watch the forum live on Medfield TV. Either way, the SBC is encouraging the community to come or tune in and learn more.
One of the main topics addressed at the forum will be the site selection of the Wheelock campus and will include a discussion of both the advantages and disadvantages of the campus model. Other items to be addressed are costs, resources spent to date, timelines and the impact of a recent citizen’s petition to keep the project at Dale Street. There will be ample time to answer residents’ questions and for community discussion.
“The SBC remains excited about the prospect of bringing a much needed new school, for grades 4 to 5, to Medfield to start the school year in 2024,” said Anna Mae O’Shea Brooke, School Building Committee member. “This is an important time for the project, and we need community engagement now more than ever to keep the project on track. We have a lot of new information to share, and we want to hear from all residents. I can’t stress enough how important participation is on June 13th.”
For more information from the SBC please visit: tinyurl.com/mednewschool, and while on the site, on the bottom of the home page, please subscribe to receive school project updates.
Medfield02052's Blog 
The fact that this ‘public forum’ is called the ‘Elementary School Project – Wheelock Campus’ speaks volumes: the decision is irreversible in the minds of those involved. The public forum is nothing but a PR offensive. There is nothing we can say that will cause the SBC to reconsider a decision that was apparently a foregone conclusion. They will feign listening and concern, but only a loss at town meeting and the special election will shock them into realizing they ought to have listened back when this all started,
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Neal,
Susan Maritan asked me to run the text she provided, as I indicated in the
post, but she provided no graphic. My process is always to try to include a graphic, and when one is not provided, I grab one to add that I think is the most appropriate,
In this instance the choice of that graphic to which you object was entirely made by me, so your anger should be entirely directed at me, not the School Building Committee. Please know that the School Building Committee had nothing to do with its selection. So please attend the public forum to see what can be learned.
With respect to the underlying site selection issue, for me, despite the town meeting vote showing strong support for the current site, the school siting choice still remains one of putting the new school at Wheelock where there is enough room to get a quality school, or shoe horning it in at the current site which site the experts on the School Building Committee who build schools tell me is too small and would result in the Town getting a compromised product. I do not want the town to end up with a school for Medfield children that is less than it can be, so I have supported the Wheelock site. The educational benefits that I am told will exist only at the Wheelock site are icing on the cake for me. Avoiding a compromised school product is primary.
Truth be told, I am somewhat bothered by the Hobson’s choice of supporting what I see as the better site to get a better school versus opposing the desires of a significant number of residents. At the moment I still favor getting the town a better school. However, there is clearly a lot for us to work through before the fall town meeting.
Thank you for listening to and considering my alternate view point.
Best,
Pete
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