Wayland school finance panel charts 18-month path to elementary building plan

WAYLAND — May 3, 2024 — Wayland's School Committee Finance Subcommittee maps 18-month plan to rebuild elementary buildings case to MSBA. Meeting May 3 with Assistant Superintendent Susan Bottan, the subcommittee agreed to ask the full School Committee on May 22 to charter a community advisory committee, hold a September visioning weekend and issue an RFP for a design and engineering firm to produce a pre-K-8 master facility study using the $288,000 already appropriated. Bottan said years of condition assessments have covered the "nuts and bolts" but the 1940s- and 1950s-era buildings no longer match current programming or the MSBA's model school template. The target is a Statement of Interest submission by March 2026, with a Lexington Public Schools study cited as the template. Subcommittee member Erin Moller pushed to mirror Lexington's stakeholder mix. The panel also approved April 5 minutes and corrected language showing the Select Board's April 1 transfer was $150,000 in special education transportation expenses, not cash.