Community Questions

These meetings are open for the public to attend, but there is not typically opportunity for community input during the meetings, however, we have added time for Community input at the 4/22 meeting. If you have questions, please email the School Building Committee or Superintendent Tracy. 

Regardless of which sites are selected to be studied, the project will explore design solutions that avoid impacting the abutting properties including maintaining and/or augmenting existing vegetative buffers within the approved project budgets.

As required by the MSBA process, mechanical systems will be evaluated during Schematic Design.  The Design Team will analyze multiple heating systems that achieve the District’s project and sustainability requirements.  The analysis will include, but not be limited to, a preliminary life cycle cost analysis along with a preliminary review of state and local funding/grants to determine potential returns on investment for each system considered.  The analysis will be presented to the School Building Committee for their review and approval to select the most appropriate and fiscally responsible system.

No one from Buker School volunteered to serve on the committee. Buker teachers did participate in the Visioning Process, including area school tours. 

The School Building Committee will not present in an open forum. The committee holds public business meetings every month at the Central Office. Meeting agendas and minutes can be found HERE. The committee reviews the FAQs as they change to keep up to date with public curiosity.

This committee will use a qualitative evaluation process that uses the same evaluation criteria for each design option. This set of criteria was derived directly from the Education Plan developed through the Visioning Process and will guide all decision-making specific to the preferred design selection.

The most recent State of Our Schools Report can be found on the website which has a high-level overview of the needed repairs. To clarify, our schools are safe and the safety of our students is a top priority. We continue to evaluate and update best practices for the safety of our students and the security of our buildings.

The Architects and the Project Management Team have not been tasked with determining the scope of work needed for base repairs and upgrades for Winthrop and Buker Schools. If Winthrop and Buker Schools were invited into the MSBA Process in the future, this is when it would be appropriate to develop this scope of work. We have continued to submit Statement of Interests to the MSBA for both the Winthrop and Buker schools.

One of our goals and hopes for the project is to find an equitable design that will benefit all elementary students at one time during their K-5 experience. Some design options that include consolidation of some grades will provide the most equitable education for students from all three elementary schools.

The School Building Committee will use a qualitative evaluation process (link) that uses the same site evaluation criteria for each design option to determine the preferred design. This set of criteria was derived directly from the Education Plan that was developed through the Visioning Process and will guide all decision-making specific to the preferred design selection.

Students are our number one priority and during the Visioning Process the participants  (combined 40+ participants – including Hamilton-Wenham leadership, staff, administrators, parents, and community members) developed the Overarching Project Goals & Priorities.

At the core of the District’s educational vision are a series of overarching goals:

* Intentional outdoor space for academic, social-emotional learning, and play

* Elevating interconnectedness and cohesion within and among grades

* Flexibility to support ALL learners and learning

* Spaces, programs, and structures to meet the needs of today AND TOMORROW

* Project as a catalyst to preserve, bridge, and create community and culture

* Elementary as the academic and social-emotional foundation

* Sustainable facility as a learning tool

Read more in the HWRSD Education Plan for the Elementary School Project.

Sustainability is a goal the HWRSD and both towns continue to strive towards and work on but is not a singular driving factor for the Elementary School Building Project. 

One of our goals and hopes for this project is to find an equitable design that will benefit all elementary students at one time during their K-5 experience. The Design Options C3.4 & C2.4 (Cutler) and W3.4 & W2.4 (Winthrop) would renovate or build a new, consolidated school to replace Cutler and Winthrop elementary schools, all students in the district in grades 1-5 would attend, serving grades 1-5. These Design Options would include students from Cutler, Buker & Winthrop. ALL of the Preschool and Kindergarten classes would be placed at the Buker School.  The HWRSD will continue to submit Statements of Interest to the MSBA for the Buker School renovation in the future. You can read more about each Design Option HERE.   

The enrollment options for the proposed project are determined by the MSBA based on enrollment projections and space capacity needs for the school. These enrollment options then dictate the design options the District is required to evaluate as part of the feasibility study for the project.  

The design enrollment, square feet per student space allowance, and total square footage of the proposed project are subject to the approval of the MSBA’s Board.

Listed below are the questions submitted regarding the size of the school. The answer is consolidated on the FAQ page.

Q:

Hello! Thank you for all the work on this project! I am curious if someone could share any studies on school size and its impact on elementary school children. There is a lot of anxiety about the impact of SCHOOL size in the discourse online but the only studies are old and look fairly biased. It’s easy to find evidence on class size but not school size. If you have resources to share, that’d be wonderful!

Also, do you have a list of towns near us that have consolidated or similarly sized elementary schools (new or old buildings!)

Q:

Hello and thank you for your work thus far on this project.

Can you please share any and all studies, sources, comparable data collected from other schools where combining schools to create one large school has had a positive impact on the students?

Please provide specific details as to studies, that I’m sure you have researched as you were preparing these options, that show students are safer, have improved learning outcomes, improves community within the student body, facilitates better environment for the students to learn, improves test scores, improves traffic/congestion, etc… I would like to review the data you have collected that shows this option is better for students because as of now, every study and statistic I have read, shows the exact opposite. That large schools are bad for students, they detrimentally impact learning, and actually are less safe and do not facilitate better community/friendships.

Extensive research done in hundreds of districts has shown over the last 60+ years that small elementary schools (with 250-350 students) provide a superior learning experience compared to large schools.

Please share the research you have found that contradicts these studies.

The financial impact of the project for the residents cannot be accurately determined until the School Building Committee votes on a preferred design in April 2024. After the preferred design is identified, the team will receive cost estimates from professional 3rd party estimators. The team will develop cost estimates in Fall of 2024 and also have a better understanding of the MSBA reimbursement rate for the project (est. 47%-51%). Once we have a more precise total project cost estimate, each town’s Finance Committee can begin to calculate potential tax impacts for residents. 

Hamilton & Wenham will vote at their April 5, 2025, Town Meetings and again at the Ballot Vote to approve funds for the project through a Proposition 2 ½ override. 

Question: Is enrollment going up or down? How do these projects affect our elderly long time residents, who have already contributed to school upgrades over the past 30 years of home ownership and are now on fixed incomes? Our elderly are locked in, due to the states housing shortage, elderly have no place to go, once their home is sold. Is this fair to everyone or only to those whom profit from more spending?

A: Elementary enrollment is rising.  We currently have 847 students at the elementary level, the second-highest number of students in the last 10- years. This is an 8.5% increase since 2020. We understand that any additional expenditures either for the towns or school impact all of our tax-payers, especially those on a fixed income. This is why we continue to seek community input and host information sessions for townspeople of all ages. If you have a group or would like to set up a time to learn more, please feel free to reach out to the Superintendent’s Office, 978-468-5310. 

Full Question: 

What about the bus situation? Right now my kindergartener gets picked up in the same bus as my 2nd grader and they go to Buker together. I understand PreK doesn’t take the bus, but kindergarten does. Is the bus making multiple stops? Or are they transferring at Buker? Or are there two separate busses? I doubt Eric will have an answer that's solid yet since redoing the bus routes when we haven't had the town vote and construction is so far off but I think parents want to know that as they decide how to vote.

Answer:

We will address and study the transportation of the elementary students later in the process. We would like to avoid using any transfer buses in the district if and when the new consolidated school is completed. Many possible scenarios will include discussions with Salter Transportation as well as the Teachers Union (HWREA). 

All of the school events will look and feel a little different with a larger school population. The new school will be designed to be able to accommodate events for the whole school population as well as individual grade ceremonies and events. Our goal is to keep those events, but this will also allow us to create NEW, grade-level events and traditions to build community.

With the Preferred Design Option 3.4 (new construction on Cutler School property), the student's will remain in Cutler School and will not be displaced during construction.