High school math: Rebuild or replace?

State to weigh in on town's options

Residents are wrestling with whether to preserve or replace Norwood High School. Many love the old building on Nichols Street, but say that renovating it would not make sense. (Robert E. Klein for the Boston Globe)

NORWOOD - It's not uncommon for towns to argue over whether to build a new school. But in Norwood, the debate centers on whether to tear an old school down.

The school on Nichols Street is not just any old school. It was designed by architect William Upham and is listed on the Historic Commission's Top 100 most significant buildings. It is home to Norwood High School.

Some people want to preserve the building and add to it, rather than tear it down so a new high school can be built on the site. Not only does that preserve a bit of history, they say, but it's a more economical approach.

Others say that, beautiful as the old building is, there is no reasonable way to make it fit today's pressing school needs.

Local sentiments run unusually high on the issue, but in the end, the decision may fall to the state, which will decide which option is most worthy of state funding. All eyes are on the May 19 state School Building Authority meeting, when the issue of how to best accommodate Norwood's 1,100 high school students may come up.

A Norwood panel called the Committee of 21, which counts many town and school officials among its members, has wrestled with the issue for years. It ultimately determined that building a new structure makes sense, at an estimated cost of $80 million to $100 million.

"We decided the most bang for the buck was the proposal for a new school," said Selectman Jerry Kelleher, a member of the school facilities task force.

Voters two years ago approved spending $6 million to design a new school.

But they weren't informed that tearing down the old school will cost $3.5 million, says Sean Dixon, of Norwood's Common Sense Committee, a group that wants to save the old school.

With inflation, and the rising cost of diesel fuel, that figure might double by 2011, when the new school is built behind the current structure, and the old one comes down, he said.

And, he argues, the final cost of building a new high school is likely to end up more than estimated. Just look, he said, at the town's new police and fire station, estimated to cost $8 million to $10 million, that ended up costing $18 million-plus.

"One thing I have learned is that it is not the building itself, whether new or old or a renovation, that determines a quality education. It's the people and the tools you give them," he said.

Revamping Norwood High, and adding a technology wing, could free up unspent millions for educational improvements in all town schools, Dixon said. He also questioned the fate of some high-school athletic fields that would be absorbed into the new building's footprint.

Kelleher countered by saying that Dixon's Common Sense Committee has tried everything to kill the new construction proposal. Now they are centering on fields, he said: "If they have an idea, where is it?"

The school, which predates Fenway Park, has no technological infrastructure, and as many as 20 students are sometimes crammed into 450-square-foot classrooms.

Science labs are inadequate, and the roof leaks. The New England Association of Schools and Colleges has placed the high school on "warning" status for accreditation.

A decision to rebuild can't come too soon, say many parents.

The option of saving the old school by building a new school elsewhere is not going to work, because there isn't anywhere else for a new school to go, added James Little, high-school Parent Teacher Association president. The association has not taken a position on the issue.

"It's a beautiful old building and it would be nice to keep it, but it can't accommodate the needs of the students," said Little.

If the town had not maintained the old building so well, the state would be more willing to approve its demolition and the new school option - an irony Little points out.

"Norwood has done a great job of maintaining the building, rather than just letting it go like other towns," he said. "But that goes against everything you learn as a kid."

Michele Morgan Bolton can be reached at: mmbolton1@verizon.net