Since the Winter Hill Community Innovation School closed in June 2023 after a piece of concrete fell from the ceiling, students have been relocated across the city, continuing their education in temporary spaces. It has been a long journey for the children and their families. After missing four days of school, students were divided among the Capuano Early Childhood Center, Olin Hall at Tufts University and the former Edgerly Education Center. The student body was reunited last fall in the Edgerly building at 8 Bonair St., where they have remained since.
This closure did not come as a complete shock to all. While the specific incident was unforeseen, Courtney Koslow — a Winter Hill parent, member of the school’s governing board and member of the school building committee — had warned the district about maintenance issues just six weeks prior.
“I had been doing some advocacy with other parents and educators around the building in 2022 and 2023, pushing the Somerville Public Schools and the city to apply to the Massachusetts School Board Authority … to get in their queue to be considered for helping offset the cost of a new school in the future,” Koslow said. “We said, ‘There’s going to be a day when this building is going to suddenly be closed for an unexpected emergency. Where are we going to go?’”
After the ceiling tile fell on June 1, 2023, parents were notified that school would be cancelled while a structural review was conducted. Shortly after, the building was deemed unsafe for learning.
Somerville City Councilor-at-Large and mayoral candidate Jake Wilson had been advocating for a new school long before the incident.
“In 2021, when I first ran, I did call for building a new school. At the time, prior to the ceiling collapse, it was obvious to me that that building was past its useful life and that we needed to build a new school in the city.”
Since then, Somerville has been working with the MSBA, which may provide up to 50% of project funding. The MSBA requires school districts to follow a nine-step process. Somerville has completed the first two steps — entering the eligibility period and creating a project team, the school building committee, which will serve an advisory role for the duration of the project. The city is now on step three: conducting a feasibility study.
Somerville’s feasibility study is somewhat unusual compared to other MSBA-funded projects. Typically, the MSBA only invites towns to apply for funding to help with the construction of one new school. However, Somerville’s Benjamin Brown School, built in 1900, is older than Winter Hill and will soon be facing similar renovation needs. As a result, the MSBA offered Somerville the option to apply for funding that would address both schools within one project.
“When [the school district] applied for Winter Hill funding, we applied also for Brown in a separate application … and then [Winter Hill’s] ceiling fell,” Koslow explained. “The MSBA said, ‘We will go through this process with you with Winter Hill — not Brown separately — but if you want to combine Winter Hill and Brown in one school, [that would be possible].’”
Mayor Katjana Ballantyne has assigned the question of whether to create one combined school or maintain separate schools to the Construction Advisory Group. They are in the process of assessing those options. The second question they are investigating is where the building would go.
At the group’s most recent meeting on Oct. 27, members reviewed results from a community survey conducted over the summer and fall. The findings indicated that residents oppose building the new school at Trum Field, favoring Winter Hill’s current site at 115 Sycamore St., instead. Additionally, respondents were nearly split between those supporting a 900-seat combined school (41%) and those favoring separate schools (45%).
For Meredith Brown, a Winter Hill parent and member of the Somerville Special Education Parent Advisory Council, combining schools is an opportunity to address inequities.
“[Inequity] is one factor that makes me lean toward a combined school; I believe we should use this school construction opportunity to reduce inequitable conditions to the extent possible, not preserve them,” Brown wrote in an email to the Daily.
Winter Hill ranks in the ninth accountability percentile — the lowest by far in the district — while Brown ranks in the 91st percentile, the highest. Wilson acknowledged the stark difference in performance between these two schools.
“It’s not a good look for a district when you have that kind of disparity between schools. It just goes to show we have a segregated city,” Wilson said. “[Moving forward] the key thing is … recognizing that some schools are gonna need more resources than others,” he continued.
Others prefer a smaller-school model, expressing concern that a combined building would be overwhelming for young students.
Rich Raiche, Somerville director of infrastructure and asset management, expressed that the preferred architecture firm for the project, Perkins Eastman, has already considered how to make a large school feel more intimate in initial design concepts.
Koslow, who also serves as vice president of development at Beacon Communities LLC, emphasized the same point.
“Things can be done in the design of the building to make it feel like smaller schools within a school, like breaking up pre-K and K from elementary and from middle school,” she said.
Another concern is that the voices of special education students and other marginalized groups have not been adequately included.
The Special Education Parent Advisory Council, for instance, does not currently have a representative on the Construction Advisory Group.
Under Massachusetts law, every school district must have a SEPAC, which plays an advisory and participatory role in policy and programming.
According to Liz Eldridge, chair of Somerville's SEPAC and a candidate for the Ward 2 School Committee, the group was not involved in the CAG until Sept. 18, when members were asked to nominate representatives for a 90-minute focus group.
While she expressed gratitude for the inclusion, Eldridge noted that “[SEPAC] being invited to these conversations from the start is what would have been appropriate.”
This issue is especially relevant because Winter Hill houses the AIM program, Somerville’s specialized program for students on the autism spectrum. Unlike other Somerville students, AIM participants do not choose their school — they attend Winter Hill by placement.
Whether the new building will include additional space for special education instruction is part of the planning process. For many, the resources that the new school will offer, including those dedicated to special education, are top priorities.
“I just want to see that our students’ needs are met and that they can be successful within the building, and that they are in a building that is accessible,” Eldridge said.
Currently, the new school is set to be finished in 2031. As planning continues, Winter Hill students remain at the Edgerly Education Center — a setting that parents and teachers say is not ideal for learning.
“I'm far more concerned about current conditions than I am concerned about the new school construction. The Winter Hill teachers and staff are wonderful and are making the best of the inadequate physical conditions at Edgerly,” Brown wrote in an email to the Daily.
Wilson echoed these concerns about both the current facilities and the school’s low accountability scores.
“We need to do better by [the Winter Hill] school community, and it’s going to take both budgetary and curriculum programming improvements there,” Wilson said. “But we can’t sit back and look at what's happening there and think that it is in any way acceptable.”
Moving forward, the Construction Advisory Group is expected to publish its final report recommending the size and location of the new school on Nov. 24. After that, the project will move into the design and construction phases.
A new mayor will be inaugurated in January, taking the helm of this critical initiative.
Eldridge expressed hope for continued collaboration moving forward.
“I’m hopeful for partnership. I’m hopeful for a proactive approach. I’m hopeful for a mayoral candidate … [that centers] community voices and those of the most historically marginalized,” she said.
Wilson pledged his commitment to accelerating the project if elected.
“What I plan on doing is moving heaven and earth to accelerate this [school construction] because it’s fallen behind the promised schedule. We have three communities who are ahead of us in the MSBA process, and that is a broken promise,” he said.
