What Wakefield can – and can’t – afford

First published in the Wakefield Daily Item, January 3, 2023.

We have a big decision to make in Wakefield – whether to approve the building of a new high school. People are talking about it and writing about it, and they should be. This decision will be crucial in determining the town’s future.

That may sound hyberbolic, but it’s not. Just think about any time you’ve visited a town where the schools were obviously old and run down – chipping paint, dated and inefficient design, obsolete systems. What does this signal to you about the town? Decline. Just as empty storefronts or abandoned office buildings signify economic decline, dilapidated schools indicate an even more central downturn. More than any other single aspect of a town, schools communicate the community’s current values and vitality. They also represent the town’s future and its promise.

Sadly, the current Wakefield Memorial High School building is in such a dilapidated state. The physical condition of the school goes beyond merely being poor – it is an embarrassment, limiting our children’s prospects, risking Wakefield’s accreditation, even adversely affecting the health of staff and students. I believe Wakefieldians are virtually unanimous in agreement on this. That’s why we are already well along in the process toward building a new school: with Wakefield finally invited, in 2019, to join the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s list of schools eligible for funding; Town Meeting overwhelmingly voting in favor of a feasibility study for a new high school in November 2020; moving forward through selection of project management, design, and construction firms over the last two years.

In October, we learned that the cost estimate for building the new school increased from $220 million to $273.7 million, due to escalating construction costs, inflation, and other factors. Exacerbating this, the MSBA’s reimbursement rate has not kept up with inflation. This means the immediate dollar costs will be higher for Wakefield residents and of course this is a concern.

But with key votes coming up at Town Meeting on January 28th and a Special Election in March, we need to look at the whole picture, and to stay focused on the long-term health and vitality of the town. We need to ask ourselves, as a whole community: What is best for Wakefield, helping to ensure it remains a thriving community, now and into the future?

In a recent column, Mark Sardella wisely framed the issue in terms of need and affordability (“School choice,” 11/3/22). He asserted: “Regardless of the need for a new high school, this project will sink or swim on affordability. And that hurdle just got a lot higher.” He goes on to propound that in light of the higher cost estimate, “With the affordability argument essentially out the window, advocates will have to sell voters on the ‘need’ for a new school. It’s all they’ve got at this point.”

“All they’ve got”? This is not a wargame, and “need” is not some kind of strategy devised for winning the game. Need is need, and the case for needing a new high school is overwhelmingly clear and compelling. Anyone with kids who are current or recent WMHS students knows this, but if you are wondering about need, just talk to us or to any WMHS student or staff or faculty member, or go to the YES for WMHS website or Facebook page for confirmation.

Moreover, Wakefieldians have already been “sold” on the need for a new school; as above, that’s why we have moved forward to our current advanced stage in the process, after years of public debate and so much time and work already invested in planning and design to bring the project closer to fruition.

On the question of affordability, it’s about costs and obviously we need to deal with the direct impact the price increase will have on people’s pocketbooks. On this front, I was glad to see the MSBA increase their reimbursement commitment, and also to hear that our town leaders will continue their efforts toward tax relief for older residents with fixed incomes. We must press to expand these aids and continue to look for other ways to help.

But the question of costs is larger than this. Think of the thousands (and thousands) of dollars spent over the years heating, cooling, and maintaining an old, inefficient building. That’s a cost we’ve been paying, and which will only increase as time goes on.

As resident Christopher Lewis pointed out in his excellent letter (“New high school is a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” 12/15/22), the energy-efficient, sustainable design of the new school will not only eliminate this cost, but will lead to a long-term return far beyond the initial investment.

There are also what I’ll call hidden killer costs to the town – not immediately visible but very real and cumulative, like a cancer growing unseen, sapping energy and holding us back. At a recent community forum on the new high school, resident Andy Bray described how, upon touring the science department at the current school, he noted that there were no hoods for ventilating fumes from experiments. Then it hit him: how many experiments fundamental to learning chemistry were not being done at WMHS? The cumulative costs: WMHS students not as prepared and so at a disadvantage compared to other graduates; students not as engaged with science as they might be and perhaps losing interest. How many other such invisible costs are being incurred as the WMHS building deteriorates, limiting students’ learning and potential?

And there’s an even bigger hidden killer cost. Think of all the people – particularly young people and families – who decide not to come to Wakefield to live after seeing the sad condition of the current high school; who don’t raise their families here, who don’t become our friends and neighbors, who don’t contribute to the local community, who don’t patronize local businesses, whose kids don’t attend the schools or play sports. It reminds me of the sequence at the heart of the film It’s a Wonderful Life, when the guardian angel Clarence shows George Bailey what the world would have been like without him. If we don’t move forward to build a new high school, we will never know these people; our life and community will never be enriched by them, because we prevented Wakefield from becoming the best version of itself.

Considering all this, what becomes crystal clear is that we can’t afford not to build the new high school. And we need to build it now. We all know, from hard experience with the Galvin Middle School, that if we fail to move forward now, (1) costs will only go up and (2) who knows how many years we would have to wait for another opportunity. Our town leaders also know this. As Town Administrator Steve Maio said: “None of us have any angst about building a new school. It’s time.”

Indeed, it is way past time. Please come to Town Meeting on January 28 and vote YES for WMHS, and then vote YES again in the Special Election in March. Wakefield’s future truly depends on it.

© Jeff Kehoe