We attended the first abutters meeting for residents whose properties will be affected by the proposed new Longmeadow Middle School. It was well attended and based on the number of people who showed up it is clear that this project will impact a lot of people who live in the neighborhoods surrounding the proposed new school. The overwhelming consensus from the abutters is that they do not support this location for the new school for a variety of reasons ranging from student safety, traffic, environmental impact, zoning violations, property valuations, property tax rate impact, and quality of life. I believe there was just one attendee who spoke in favor of the project at this location, but the overwhelming majority oppose the project. I should state also that everyone in attendance agreed that there is a problem with the middle schools and supports improving the quality of education in Longmeadow. The problem is that there is very little support for putting the new school in the Williams athletic field for all of the stated reasons in addition to the site being too small for a school of this size in a suburban residential neighborhood.
After digesting the conversation from the abutters meeting, we started asking ourselves, how did we get to this point in Longmeadow where virtually all of our students, especially at the elementary and middle school grades, get driven to school? For a town with over 2,500 students this seems both highly inefficient and environmentally unacceptable. Longmeadow leases just four school buses, and a small population of students who live close to our schools do walk or bike, but the overwhelming majority get dropped off by parents. This has resulted in numerous traffic bottlenecks every morning and afternoon at the high school, the two middle schools, and also the three elementary schools. Is this what we want for Longmeadow? Can we and should we be better stewards of our town and the planet.
In the weeks and months ahead, I foresee this project generating a lot of interest and debate, especially as we get closer to the town vote for funding, which will take place in November of 2025. Until then we have the opportunity to get this right, to protect our town, and to ensure that Longmeadow remains a community of choice for both its educational system and its quality of life.
Bill & Terry DeGiulio
Longmeadow
