School Committee members decided Monday night that they are no longer interested in moving the school administrative offices to the old library. Instead, they approved a letter to the Board of Selectmen saying they support leasing the old library to the CASE (Concord Area Special Education) Collaborative for its Colebrook School.
The School Committee made its decision in response to a Nov. 8 letter that Assistant Town Administrator Marie Sobalvarro sent to all town departments asking about their interest in using the old library building. The School Committee had expressed tentative interest in 2013, but the draft letter it approved this week states, “[W]e are no longer interested in pursuing this option.”
Accessibility remains an issue
The main drawback to Bromfield House, the current school administration building, is its lack of wheelchair accessibility, both because its doorways are not wide enough and because there is no elevator to the second floor, where the office of pupil services is located. Otherwise, Superintendent Linda Dwight said, the office space is sufficient for the district’s needs and its location is very convenient to other school buildings.
Moving the administration offices to the old library would have required selling Bromfield House, with money from the sale going toward adapting the old library, which has accessibility problems of its own, to the new use.
The letter approved by the School Committee states, “While the cost of making the Bromfield House ADA compliant remains an unsettled issue, we now recognize the importance of this historic property to the town, and perhaps more importantly, the prudence of retaining town land adjacent to school property.”
In the discussion leading up to their approval of the letter, all members of the School Committee expressed at least conditional support for leasing the old library to the CASE Collaborative for its Colebrook School.
The Colebrook School, which is currently located in the administration building of the Acton-Boxborough schools, serves about 25 students, Dwight told the committee. Colebrook offers an academically challenging program for adolescents who have had difficulties in general education settings, according to the CASE website. Harvard is a member of the CASE Collaborative, and several students from Harvard attend the Colebrook School.
Dwight said an agreement with CASE “is not a sure thing.” However, if the collaborative and the town of Harvard do reach an accord, CASE would pay an annual rent for the old library and would perhaps do some capital upgrades to the building. Dwight added that CASE would likely not need the whole building, so the lower room might still be available for town use.
