The towns of Hamilton and Wenham have been trying to get federal approval to renovate the elementary schools for years. In 2022, this request was finally accepted; however, the state would only allow Hamilton and Wenham to combine all three elementary schools instead of renovating each school.
While initially, there were a few different proposals for the school, the proposal that the state agreed to fund combined Winthrop, Cutler, and Buker Elementary School to accommodate growing class sizes and fix the crumbling infrastructure of the three small schools.
When the towns of Hamilton and Wenham learned of the proposal, there was a spit reaction.
The head of the school board, Danna Allara, highlighted the positives, saying that the new school will have “learning neighborhoods, and right now, they’re designed each one with seven classrooms, plus a special education classroom within” for each grade level.
Allara confirmed that not everyone is in favor of the new plan. In fact, the community is split almost exactly in half. One-half of the two towns want to combine the three schools into one. The other half wants to keep the original three schools and find different ways to renovate the school buildings.
Carey Greene, a first-grade teacher at Cutler Elementary School, said a new school would offer “[new] opportunities for learning and for the students, technology, and updates with things that these older building doesn’t have.”
Greene went on to say, “I could use more storage; that would be helpful. Things like the outlets. There are not enough outlets here. And the ones that I have, when you plug something in, it falls out.”
Currently, there are problems with the framework at Cutler Elementary School. Greene said, “The doors all close, but there’s gaps between them, and we have had many problems with mice in the classrooms.”
Helen Lee, a sophomore high school student who worked as a janitorial assistant at Cutler Elementary School, said, “There were mouse droppings in the bathrooms and classrooms as well as huge spiders.”
Those who opposed the plan started calling it a “mega school” and argued that renovations were the best option. They want the elementary schools to remain small and they feel it creates a close knit community.
Superintendent Eric Tracy highlighted the financial challenges of taking the renovation route.
He said, “One of the things that is part of the feasibility process is they look at what it costs to renovate, what it costs to just bring it into ADA compliance (Americans with Disability Act compliance), and those were between 40 and 100 million [dollars], just to do that with the same building, but you still have the same problems. It doesn’t fix the problems you already had. You don’t fix the roof; you don’t fix the windows. You’re basically just repairing the inside. And it’s a lot of money.”
Allara said there are plans to help make the new school feel more manageable for its younger students. She outlined the floor plan, saying that when coming “into the building, the youngest students are all situated very close to the gym and the cafeteria so that they don’t feel that sense of being [lost], and then as [they] get older…[they] can navigate their school on their own a lot better”.
Superintendent Eric Tracy and the Hamilton-Wenham School District are working with architects to figure out where everything will go. Due to the sheer size of the proposed school plan, a lot of time and feedback is needed to create the ideal design. Tracy added, “The architects are designing the building. They’re looking at room locations, how many bathrooms they need, locations of mechanicals, and things like that. We’ll get a firm number, probably close to the end of December.”
This issue remains prevalent in the Hamilton-Wenham community and continues to affect the students of the three elementary schools. The outcome of this could reshape how the community can facilitate education and provide education to its students.
