Pricey school, hidden costs
NEWTON - Dump that it is, the current Newton North High School is a shining example of how irrelevant bricks and mortar can be to a great education.
Year after year the dark, leaky, stuffy, too-hot, too-cold school is ranked among the best in the state. A whopping 87 percent of last year's seniors went on to college.
Some in the class of 2008 spent the second half of their final year on self-directed projects, including studies on early literacy intervention, the ethnomusicology of traditional American music, and a comparison between Chinese and US medical practices. Some did field work in China, Guatemala, Appalachia.
The students who go to this school have things students in a lot of other places do not: an abundance of well-paid teachers and administrators; creative programs; affluent, engaged parents; safe neighborhoods.
And it shows. The seniors pouring out of the salmon brick behemoth on a sunny afternoon last week were confident and eloquent.
They were also thrilled to be leaving their soon-to-be-demolished school building.
"Don't look up, it's gross," said Cathy Leung, who is headed to Amherst College.
"Some rooms don't even have windows," said Juliet Yuan, bound for Northwestern.
"The bathrooms are gross. The toilets overflow and it smells really bad." This from Beth Raymond, who is going to American University.
The new Newton North, currently a vast swath of dirt beside the old Newton North, is meant to fix all of those problems and more.
Designed by noted architect Graham Gund, the price of the luxe, high-tech marvel with its glass-walled cafeteria, its super-equipped auditoriums and its zig-zag footprint has exploded in increments of tens of millions.
The city says a big chunk of the increase was the result of the discovery of a rock ledge, as well as asbestos from a previously demolished school, during site preparation. How engineers managed to drill 78 holes into a site and not hit rock, or asbestos from debris everybody knew has been there, is a mystery that may never be solved.
The most expensive school in state history, currently tagged at nearly $200 million, has sunk Mayor David Cohen, who has clung to his money pit while calling for a property tax override to cover other municipal costs.
Cohen, rightly derided for making (and then abandoning) a pay raise request two weeks before the override vote, announced Friday he plans to leave office next year, when his term is up.
All of this would be an amusing instance of suburban excess if it didn't affect the rest of us, but it does.
Because Newton's ridiculously expensive high school will beget other ridiculously expensive high schools. Already, Wellesley is considering one that could cost $160 million, and while the state will be contributing only $47 million for Newton North, it could pay as much as $64 million toward Wellesley's new school.
And if tony towns are building these wondrous marvels, who is to say that kids in Chelsea and Holyoke don't deserve them as well? In poorer cities and towns, the state would be on the hook for 80 percent of a new school's cost.
And that state money? That's our money.
While many Newton residents share Cohen's passion for his signature project, Newton North senior Noah Brunell is embarrassed by it. Brunell doesn't care about bricks and mortar.
The current building is "definitely usable, and it's got charm," he said over the puckpuckpuck of the machinery next door. "It would have been worth it to take more time to cut costs."
Brunell is going to the University of Rochester in September to study political science.
When he's done he should come back to Newton and run for mayor.
Yvonne Abraham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at abraham@globe.com.
