Moving day is coming, but don’t schedule the van just yet. That, in effect, is the message the School Committee is sending to the Board of Selectmen about Bromfield House, currently used as the school administration building.
Faced with finding almost $700,000 to repair, repaint, and re-roof the building, while also bringing it up to code and making it accessible for the handicapped, the School Committee voted unanimously Monday night to leave the building behind. The motion called for informing the town administrator that the committee no longer intends to use Bromfield House for educational purposes, “pending identification of other acceptable space” for the school offices.
Finding that “other acceptable space” is the heart of the dilemma, as well as the reason that the committee set no timetable for the move.
A sense of urgency
Committee member Kirsten Wright said that she felt a sense of urgency about the decision, because two options for usable space in town center might not be available for long. Wright referred to an Oct. 9 letter from Town Administrator Tim Bragan to Superintendent Joe Connelly in which Bragan discussed possible new locations for the school offices.
One possibility, Bragan wrote, is the old library, now leased to the Center on the Common. He explained that the lease allowed the town to tell the Center to vacate the space. The other possible location, Bragan said, is the second floor of a remodeled Town Hall, although he acknowledged, “This option could very possibly meet with resistance” from people who want to restore that area as a large hall with a stage.
Committee member Keith Cheveralls noted that there is no safety-related reason to vacate Bromfield House immediately; but the building’s lack of accessibility is a major drawback. Cheveralls advocated putting the school offices in Town Hall, and he urged the committee to come to a decision. “We have kicked this down the road since 2010 . . . and Town Hall is in play right now,” he said.
Discussion of Town Hall ‘a nightmare’
Chairwoman SusanMary Redinger countered that Bromfield House meets the schools’ needs well for the moment and is ideally located. She pointed out that the old library would also require a lot of expensive modification. “And discussion of Town Hall right now is a nightmare,” she said.
Redinger recalled that the committee has briefly mentioned two other possibilities in the past–either tearing down Bromfield House and building new offices; or waiting until declining enrollment frees up space in Hildreth Elementary School and then converting those empty classrooms to offices.
Superintendent Connelly advised against relying on declining enrollment to make space available. Populations tend to swing in cycles, he said. If the schools need to reclaim the classrooms later, the money spent on converting them to offices would have been wasted.
At the committee’s request, Connelly had previously calculated how much office space the school administration needs. The current offices in Bromfield House take up 1968 square feet, according to his figures. With a slightly larger conference room, a little more work space and storage space, and a waiting area for visitors, he estimated that new offices should total 2250 square feet.
Bromfield Trust terms govern use of sale money
Bromfield House was originally built in 1914 as a home for the headmaster of the Bromfield School, with money bequeathed to the town by Margaret Bromfield Blanchard. The town later placed the house under the jurisdiction of the School Committee. According to a Nov. 26 memo from Town Counsel Mark Lanza, if Bromfield House were sold, the money from the sale could be spent only in ways that meet the terms of the trust created by Blanchard’s will. Lanza listed four possibilities that include maintaining the Bromfield School building and grounds; purchasing books and equipment for the school; defraying Bromfield School expenses; and “providing instruction for . . . pupils of talent and promise whose parents may not be able to pay for it.”
The letter that the School Committee proposes to send to the Board of Selectmen will be the second one on this topic. Almost exactly a year ago, Redinger wrote to the selectmen, asking them to “provide some direction” about the disposition of Bromfield House.
