'New' Bancroft School to sit at front of current property

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March 4, 2010

Access road decision comes next week

By Bethany Bray

The new school that replaces Bancroft Elementary will be built in front of where the existing school sits now. The School Building Committee voted 6-1 Wednesday morning, March 3, in favor of a design that builds a two- and three-story school with a south-facing entrance at the front of the property off Bancroft Road.

Outgoing Superintendent Claudia Bach was the lone vote againt the plan, saying she believes the idea will take "a complicated fix" to make traffic patterns work. Bach supported building the new school behind the existing Bancroft school in two phases of construction.

Bancroft, built in 1969, has structural problems and the Massachusetts School Building Authority is partnering with the town to pay to build its replacement, as long as state guidelines are met.

The proposed school would be near the west border of the Bancroft property, several hundred feet from the home of Tim Vaill of 9 Bancroft Road. Vaill suggested the committee consider a school design in the center of the property, to be fair to all abutters.

"I believe when you have a choice of putting a building on previously developed land versus undeveloped land, you should chose the previously developed land," said Annie Gilbert, member of both the School and School Building Committees.

Gilbert voted for the design because it gives more flexibility for the school's interior design and preserves wetlands and some trees on the property, she said. However, some trees will have to come down to accommodate playing fields that will be moved, Gilbert told the roughly 20 residents at Wednesday's 8 a.m. meeting.

Building committee members emphasized their vote decided only where the new school will sit, and decisions surrounding school population, building design, playing fields and traffic patterns - including whether an additional access road will be built to the school - will come later.

"The cards are going to continue to move. This is not the footprint, merely a location in front of the site," said building committee member Joseph Reilly.

Building committee member Tom Deso said the advantage of the chosen single-phase construction is the building will be ready sooner at less cost, with less chance for delay than a two-phase construction. It impacts the smallest amount of abutters, he said.

The School Committee is slated to discuss and possibly vote to solidify a school population figure for the new school at its March 3 and 9 meetings. The School Building Committee will vote on secondary access roads to the new school at their March 10 meeting, and do a site visit to the West Knoll Road cul-de-sac on Friday, March 5 at 8 a.m.

Neighbors who live in the wooded neighborhood next to Phillips Academy have voiced concerns against some dramatic changes proposed for the site - especially the idea of changing a walking path into a paved access road.