Midpoints: The ever-changing school scene

It is with a heavy heart that students look at the calendar and mourn the end of summer. How fleeting it was this year, as a cool and rainy spring and summer gave students only a few weeks of the real thing – steamy days for swimming in the pool, heading to the beach, or just hanging around in shorts and flip-flops with friends.

Now it is time to go back to the routine of early rising, of days filled with classes and learning, studying, and extracurricular activities. Elementary, middle school, and high school students are taking this week to get their gear in order and their minds focused on the year ahead. Alas, the college kids are already gone, off on a new life adventure away from home and the constant supervision of parents.

For those in local towns whose job it is to see that the kids have a place to go and learn, it has been a busy summer, indeed. In Dedham, planners are hard at work on the new Avery School construction project. The estimated $21.8 million structure to be built off Pottery Lane is in the planning and design stage, and is expected to be presented to Special Town Meeting in November for consideration of a debt exclusion override authorization, with a town-wide vote scheduled for January.

Those on the Dedham School Building Rehabilitation Committee are immersed in weighing costs versus aesthetics, enrollment and square footage, and the intricacies of dealing with the Massachusetts School Building Authority and its new guidelines.

In Westwood, expansion work is wrapping up at the Thurston Middle School, where the addition of seven modular classrooms will be completed just in time for the start of the new school year. The $3.5 million project includes a bigger cafeteria and new classrooms, and will alleviate ongoing space crunch problems, particularly important in the next couple of years as a student enrollment bubble works its way through the system.

Norwood has begun in earnest the work on its new high school. Demolition of the gymnasium of the School on the Hill is expected to be completed before students return for a new school year. Installation of the primary electrical conduit/feeder is underway, and concrete foundations are set in anticipation of the placement of steel, which is the next step for the construction of the new building, which is expected to be ready for September 2011.

All of these projects underscore the enormity of the responsibility undertaken by those who serve on building committees, school committees, and in the administration of the school districts. The ramifications of decisions made by town governing and administrative bodies cannot be understated.

The reason is simple: There is absolutely no room for error, yet human beings are not perfect and, therefore, mistakes are sometimes made. And when it comes to the education of a town’s children, there are no do-overs.

Children progress through the school system over a finite number of years. When those years are good, when the economy is growing, funding is plentiful, and talented people oversee the important day-to-day decisions and make few errors, the children prosper and their futures are brighter. When money is tight and day-to-day decisions are influenced accordingly, when decision makers flounder and mistakes are made, students suffer. And they are affected for life by the accident of timing.

As students start a new school year, area residents should be thankful for the people who devote their lives to making quality education possible for their children, for their generosity in offering their time and talent to improving the quality of life in their communities. But residents must never be silent if they believe that decisions are adversely impacting their children and communities.

Mistakes on structures and classroom configurations and curriculum can be corrected if they don’t work out, but for the students affected by these decisions, the result is a lasting one.

Norwood resident Candace Leary’s Midpoints column appears Mondays in the Transcript.