Outdated Schools Divide Mansfield

By Syd­ney Jennings

MANSFIELD–Outdated ele­va­tors, lock­ers, doors, bath­rooms, walls and doors are appar­ent issues at the Mans­field Mid­dle School.

Lead­ing into the build­ing, there are large stains on the brick
wall sur­round­ing the entrance, as well as rust around the edges of the doors and stains at the bot­tom of the doors.

The ele­va­tors are fair­ly old and have scuff marks on the doors, as well as dam­age to the bot­tom of the doors, such as yel­low marks and chipped paint.

“The ele­va­tors are clear­ly out­dat­ed, which makes it more unsafe for the stu­dents to ride in,” Board of Edu­ca­tion mem­ber Sarah Lacombe said.

The lock­ers are in sim­i­lar con­di­tion with dents, scuff marks, and miss­ing locks on some of the doors.

The bath­rooms are out­dat­ed and have dam­age to the stall doors, as well as decay­ing sinks with rust around the han­dles and brown col­or­ing in the sinks.

“It is clear that our schools need to be repaired and updat­ed with new facil­i­ties so it is safer for the chil­dren,” Lacombe said. “It also just looks more pre­sentable if our schools are updated.”

The pub­lic schools in Mans­field date back to the ear­ly 1950s and are in dire need for repairs at an esti­mat­ed cost of $1,323,000, which have left the res­i­dents divid­ed between those who sup­port the ren­o­va­tions and those who oppose them.

The ren­o­va­tions are part of the Cap­i­tal Improve­ment Project, which is meant to iden­ti­fy need­ed cap­i­tal projects and to orga­nize the financ­ing and tim­ing of those projects, Super­in­ten­dent of Schools Kel­ly Lyman said.

“The Cap­i­tal Improve­ment Project will take a few years to accom­plish,” Lyman said. “It is a very long and rig­or­ous process.”

The mid­dle school gym­na­si­um has become a tar­get for need­ed ren­o­va­tion at the mid­dle school includ­ing a new floor, divid­ing wall, cur­tain and bleach­ers, accord­ing to Lyman’s facil­i­ties pre­sen­ta­tion to the school board.

The most cost­ly ren­o­va­tion to the gym­na­si­um would be the floor, which has mis­matched wood­en tiles and a sig­nif­i­cant amount of wear and tear, which would cost between $157,000 and $175,000 to replace, accord­ing to the presentation.

In a sur­vey tak­en of 30 Mans­field res­i­dents, 90% of them were in favor of these ren­o­va­tions even with the high cost of repairs.

“My chil­dren attend the mid­dle school and I place a high val­ue on phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion,” Mans­field Mid­dle School Asso­ci­a­tion mem­ber Marie Hodrin­sky, a par­ent in the town, said. “But they should not have to have their class in a dingy, old gymnasium.”

The boys and girls lock­er rooms are also in need of ren­o­va­tions, accord­ing to the presentation.

The lock­er rooms have unus­able show­ers due to the decay­ing show­er heads and tile floor along with rusty, dent­ed met­al lock­ers, which would cost around $180,000 to fix, accord­ing to the presentation.

The over­all cost to fix the gym­na­si­um, includ­ing the boys and girls lock­er rooms, would be $873,000, accord­ing to the presentation.

One res­i­dent said that the class­rooms should be the top pri­or­i­ty if the schools do get renovated.

“Chil­dren go to school to learn and they spend the major­i­ty of their time in the class­room so they should have a mod­ern space where they are com­fort­able and can focus,” res­i­dent Bill Latz said.

The class­rooms will be a pri­or­i­ty, Lyman said.

“Our stu­dents deserve a nice space to learn. That is the whole rea­son they come to school,” Lyman said. “They need tables that do not have writ­ing on them, chairs that don’t wob­ble and com­put­ers that are not outdated.”

In 2006, the board start­ed talk­ing about the fate of the schools, but a deci­sion was not made, Lacombe said.

“The town was divid­ed on whether the town should have ren­o­vat­ed all the schools or knock one or two [of the three ele­men­tary schools] down,” Lacombe said. “This cre­at­ed a big debate so a deci­sion was not made at that time.”

The sur­vey also found that 10% of Mans­field res­i­dents said that the schools should be razed.

“I think the town needs to start fresh instead of adding onto the already aging schools,” res­i­dent Chris­tine Reil­ly said.

Lyman said she is aware of the need­ed ren­o­va­tions and hopes to address them in the future.

“We know our build­ings have sev­er­al infra­struc­ture needs and that many of the spaces with­in our schools will not con­tin­ue to be ade­quate,” Lyman said.

Lyman will be address­ing these issues in the future with a facil­i­ties study, which will help deter­mine if the pro­posed ren­o­va­tions should be done or if any­thing else needs to be fixed as well.

“I am look­ing for­ward to this study because I expect it to be more than a ‘state of the build­ings’ report,” Lyman said. “But rather a process that helps us define our needs and con­sid­er sev­er­al options while get­ting lots of input from our community.”

Some par­ents said they hope that the study will allow them to express some con­cerns about the schools and get some of the issues fixed.

“I hope the board will not only hear our con­cerns, but see them first-hand in the facil­i­ties study so they will make more of an effort to fix the prob­lems,” Hodrin­sky said.

Some of the oth­er prob­lems being looked at include new solar pan­el roofs, mod­ern cafe­te­rias, and a new $450,000 boil­er at Vin­ton Ele­men­tary School, accord­ing to the superintendent’s facil­i­ties presentation.

Some res­i­dents said they are pleased with the pro­posed renovations.

“It is impor­tant for our schools to be up to date because the stu­dents need good resources and a good envi­ron­ment to learn in,” res­i­dent Noel Popoli said.

Anoth­er res­i­dent said that the ren­o­va­tions have been a long time coming.

“It is 2016 and many oth­er schools are being updat­ed with new tech­nol­o­gy and facil­i­ties and I think it is time for Mans­field to do the same thing,” Latz said.

The school board vot­ed and approved the pro­posed ren­o­va­tions in Jan­u­ary that were shown in Lyman’s facil­i­ties presentation.

Some res­i­dents said that they were pleased with this approval.

“I think this is a good step for­ward for our schools to get a much need­ed makeover,” Popoli said.