School Committee Prioritizes Needs

The School Committee met on Tuesday night in the Lynch Elementary Library to prioritize their capital budget recommendations and to finalize some of their plans for the Gifted and Talented program.

Recently each committee member provided Superintendent William McAlduff with their own rankings of the proposed capital projects. McAlduff compiled, and averaged, the findings before presenting them to the committee.

"I'm pretty happy with it," Sarah Swiger said.

This appeared to be the general consensus since most members seem to see eye-to-eye on what they believe are the most important priorities.  These include the replacement of the Vinson-Owen school building, the Parkhurst swing space, the high school feasibility study, the relocation of the central office and the roof replacement at Lynch.

But some of these projects, due to the magnitude of their cost, will not fall under next year's capital budget.

"There are assumptions that need to be made here," Bill McAlduff said.  "Parkhurst has been on here since I got here. We shouldn't even waste time talking about it. The only opportunity will be through the VO project."

The Vinson Own school replacement proposal, which is estimated to cost the town over $17 million and have a total cost of around $28 million, will most likely be presented to Winchester as a ballot initiative. At that time the Parkhurst swing space might be included with it, or it will be introduced as a separate ballot item.

Because some of the committee's recommendations may be funded outside of the capital budget, or be eligible for overrides, it left the window open for one or two other projects. The committee decided that the Ambrose heating problem and school safety systems were their next highest priorities.