Shattuck PTA Petitions Norwood School Committee to Support Portable Gym Request-November 4, 1971

School Board Votes Unanimously to Include Portable Gymnasium in 1972 Annual Town Meeting Budget

Responding to the wishes of approximately 25 members of the Shattuck School, the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) crowd, Norwood School Committee voted unanimously last night to include a request for a portable gym-all purpose room for the school on its budget for the 1972 annual town meeting. Shattuck PTA President Joseph M. Pentowski presented the committee with petitions signed by 160 parents. By a unanimous Oct. 14 vote the PTA had agreed to pursue the matter at a meeting with the committee, he said. After seconding the motion of committee member Francis X. Sheehan, Mr. Pentowski noted the school, Norwood’s oldest, is prevented by law from holding assemblies, lacking a large enough room to contain the approximately 200-member student body. Its only physical education facility, he added, is a basement corridor. He objected to children’s taking gym classes on the basement floor, directly in front of the restrooms. “That floor must be covered with bacteria; it makes me sick,” said Mr. Pentowski. The school’s speech and music programs are now conducted in a cloakroom, he noted, and the PTA is dissatisfied with the lack of facilities needed for a larger music program. “We want our own orchestra,” said Mr. Pentowski. A lunchroom doubles as the school library, he added. “We’ve only been playing rent and tax dollars for years for other schools to have the facilities we lack,” he asserted.

Mr. Sheehan argued the upcoming meeting was concerned only with items of an emergency nature, notably the construction plans for a replacement for burned-out Junior High South. Mr. Saraca held the PTA group’s arguments outlined the emergency nature of the request, claiming the item would easily be “knocked off by the special town meeting,” urging its postponement for the annual budget.

One committee member, Charles C. Saraca, sought to have the proposal considered on the warrant of the upcoming special town meeting, but the committee felt it lacked the time needed to research and prepare the article. Mr. Pentowski noted a school committee four years ago had recommended a portable gym for the school.

Committee member Judith Berkowitz, a member of that committee, said, “That plan got waylaid. A strong group of people wanted a brick addition.” Mr. Saraca sought to amend the motion for presentation to the upcoming special town meeting. He asked School Supt. Philip O. Coakley for a price estimate and received the figure of $60,000 to $80,000 for the gym’s outright purchase.

As Chairman Dr. Thomas A. Couch worried, “Would we have time?” Mr. Saraca insisted the research would involve only a telephone call to determine the price and added, “We would have a week or two before we could get it on the warrant.” Selectmen have set no date for the special town meeting as yet.

As it stands now, the school committee will seek one article for the 9.5-acre land purchase, another for the six-acre transfer, a third for definitive plans and drawings on a 1,000-pupil junior high school and two additional articles to effectively erase those previously enacted by town meeting last April relating to the rebuilding of Junior High South school, previously slated for phasing out by the school committee.

Reviewing bus transportation for the proposed Endean-area school, Dr. Coakley advised the maximum increase in buses would be one. He noted, with variable factors such as use of a railroad underpass walkway on Cedar Street and the possibility of another to be constructed further down on the Penn Central line, any increases in busing could be eliminated. The proposed underpass would lead directly onto the Endean land, he said. The committee instructed him to investigate the possibility with the help of the town engineer.

Dr. Coakley advised some redistricting would be desirable, making it possible for no change in the present number of buses and allowing a better balancing of enrolments between the two junior high schools. Dr. Couch reassured the parents on the proposed phase-out, which he said would be done “only if we could give the children a better educational opportunity.” He added the building could be used for special education classes, a guidance center or storage if its use as an elementary school were terminated.

The superintendent reported a recent conversation with Mr. Bird‘s attorney had assured him no conflict existed in regard to use of the Endean land for a school site. Questions have been raised as to the legality of the land’s use, as the original deed of gift by the Bird family specified its use only for recreational purposes. However, the deed did allow a schoolhouse as one future use, but because of that term’s current meaning, which includes football fields, tennis courts, driveways and parking lots, it was argued the meaning had changed drastically since the deed was written in 1933. Dr. Coakley said he expected a letter confirming the attorney’s opinion, signed by Mr. Bird, for the town’s permanent records.

Postpone Phase-Out and Pregnant Student Policy Adopted

However, Mr. Pentowski reported feeling for retaining the school, claiming “99 per cent of the parents want the neighborhood school,” he asked, “Why phase it out? Why antagonize people?” He stated the wish of the group that the committee reconsider its plans or postpone the phase-out indefinitely. However, one woman in the group disagreed. “There are many of us who are aware of the educational facilities lacking in the school,” she said, “those of us who would be delighted to see it phased out.” Mr. Pentowski said, “It is an emergency, as far as I’m concerned.”

Mr. Saraca’s amendment for immediate action, however, received no second and the committee subsequently voted to put the matter on its annual budget request. The committee also voted unanimously to adopt the state Board of Education‘s policy concerning pregnant students. It holds that all students, married or not, may not be excluded from school solely because of pregnancy. This is a change from previous policy which required pregnant students to withdraw from school before the condition became obvious and allowed readmission at a later date.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger