Due to a rapid increase in the town’s student population, the town has considered possible additions or changes to the high school in the coming years. This past summer, the Brookline School Population and Capacity Exploration (BSPACE) committee looked at all the possible issues involving this infusion of students and came up with several solutions.
Starting in 2018, the high school will be filled with a large influx of students that currently makes up classes in the K-8 schools, according to the final report of the BSPACE committee. Unlike the elementary schools, which are tasked with housing the inflated kindergarten class, the high school has a few years to adapt to and prepare for a school population of over 2,500 students.
According to Rebecca Stone, a BSPACE and School Committee member, some of the options that involved the high school that the BSPACE committee worked on were the creation of either a second high school or a 7-12th grade school. Neither of these proposals were ultimately recommended by the BSPACE committee; it only recommended that the current high school expand to accommodate incoming students.
“What the school committee voted just this fall was for the high school expansion to proceed with a process not driven by the proposals and the concept studies, but to begin a much broader high school community process led by the superintendent and the headmaster,” Stone said.
Alan Morse, BSPACE committee co-chair and a chair of the School Committee, stressed the importance of the high school community.
“The high school community will be the bulk of the driving force in terms of how it turns out, and included in it is not just how the physical design will look like, but what will be the design from an educational point of view,” Morse said.
On June 13, HMFH Architects, Inc. presented several concept studies to the BSPACE committee and the headmaster that proposed turning either the Schluntz or Tappan gyms into classroom spaces. According to Stone and Morse, neither of these solutions will be implemented unless the school administration agrees with the design.
Sarah Boehs, a Brookline parent who was active in the BSPACE proceedings this past summer, said that the BSPACE committee did not dedicate much time toward discussing the plans for the high school and why the option of a second high school was ultimately disregarded.
“I am not convinced that enough attention was given to really be convinced about expanding the High School instead of building a second high school or one new high school at a new location,” Boehs said. “I think all those options were not necessarily given enough consideration where I could feel confident that expanding Brookline High is the best solution.”
Morse stressed the importance of staff and faculty involvement in the decision, saying that they should play an active role in any decision regarding any sort of major change within the school.
“That’s the way it has always happened, and that’s the way it should always happen,” Morse said. “They are going to be impacted and they are going to have to teach there and the kids. That’s the community.”
Juliana Kaplan and Alua Noyan can be contacted at [email protected].
