School Committee Gets Approval on Vinson-Owen Design

On Wednesday morning the Massachusetts School Building Association (MSBA) approved the Vinson-Owen preferred design option.

The Educational Facilities Planning and Building Committee (EFPBC) and Tappe Associates can now begin designing schematics for the new school building.

The committee looked at five different options as to how to handle a new school building and where to build it. They decided, along with public input, that a new school will be built at the rear of the playing field, up against the slope of the hill. The committee decided that location gives the school the best chance to use all of its facilities.

"The options to put the building on the hill would have been an accessibility nightmare or detriment to students and staff with disabilities who would have traversed up that hill," said architect and planner Brooke Trivas. "While there may have been a little bit more play-space in the front, the building use was not as good."

It is the same diagram the committee unveiled at its first public hearing, but with some revisions after the public voiced some suggestions on how to improve the plans. The main addition would keep a student drop-off zone on Johnson Road, and provide a walkway to the front of the school.

"We think that this is the best utilization of the site," Trivas said. "It incorporates the most green-space, it has distinct play-areas for kindergarteners and the older students, it has a field in the front, we maintain the most trees, all things taken into consideration, this was the preferred option.

This new school will be larger than the current Vinson-Owen building because of the expected redistricting the town will go through.