Millis School Committee selects Middle/High School renovation plan to present to state
By Theresa Knapp
At a joint meeting on Feb. 5, the Millis Select Board and Millis School Committee voted to endorse an addition and renovation plan for the Millis Middle/High School, as recommended by the Millis School Building Committee.
Millis Superintendent of Schools Robert Mullaney told the Select Board, “Based on our district’s core values and beliefs about learning, our Vision of a Graduate, the Education Plan developed for the Middle/High School building project, and the Educational Visioning work done thoughout 2024, it is our recommendation that addition/renovation option ‘AR4a’ is the only option, aside from a new school facility, that would meet the current and future needs of the Millis Public Schools.”
The renovation/addition project includes a 94,200 gross square foot renovation and a 55,800 gsf addition that ultimately “creates two distinct schools with shared common space at the center.” The project includes:
• New dedicated middle school wing
• Direct first-floor access of new middle school wing to STEAM [science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics], arts, music entrance
• New adequately-sized gym nasium
• New STEAM and multi-purpose space in existing renovated gym in center of school
• Redesign of the existing high school classrooms
• Possible dedicated entrances for separate schools
The cost of the project is estimated to be $127.4 million with a cost to the town between $71.2 million and $82 million.
Millis Select Board member Craig Schultze said the town would fund this project through a debt exclusion which is a temporary tax increase to pay a debt service from bonding for a specific capital project. This method was previously used for Millis’ library, fire station, police department, Veterans Memorial Building, and Clyde F. Brown Elementary School building projects.
“That lasts only for 30 years; after 30 years that money is paid off and it’s gone,” said Schultze, adding “A million dollars of borrowing works out to about $16 a year, just ballpark, on an average house, a $607,000 appraised house is about $16 a year.”
Schultze said the town is looking for value. “We’re looking for something that’s going to last 50 years, that we’re not going to have to come back to, and it’s going to meet all of our educational needs for the next 50 years.”
Select Board Chair Ellen Rosenfeld said, “We all take this very seriously. This is the biggest ask ever in the history of Millis. We understand the impact that this is going to have on everybody…We do everything we can in this town to consider the financial impact on every single resident of this town…No town does more with less than we do, that’s who we are and that is what we’re doing here.”
Rosenfeld said, “This is the final piece of the Millis puzzle: Renovate the Middle/High school to get another 50 years out of it, bring it up to code, separate the middle from the high, make it safe for today’s world, and provide our students the best environment possible to accomplish their goals.”
She also said town officials looked at school regionalization “knowing it wouldn’t help us for our immediate needs but we looked at it anyway” and they spoke with state representatives “imploring them to increase funding.”
During the public comment portion of the meeting, Millis School Committee Chair Robyn Briggs addressed the board’s mention of possible school regionalization. She said she had reached out to all school districts that touch Millis - King Philip, Dover-Sherborn, Holliston, Medway, Medfield - and there was no interest in regionalizing with Millis.
“And so we have nowhere to go for that,” said Briggs. “I really reached out to all these School Committee people and they said, ‘Not right now, thank you.’ This was very much out of left field for them, for us to come at them with this request, they were not prepared for that.” She did say, however, that some districts were interested in working together regarding special education cost savings.
The next steps in the process include submitting the endorsed plan to the MSBA, conducting public forums and board presentations, and a vote at Town Meeting and at the ballot box.
For more information, visit www.millisschoolproject.com/
Holliston officially ‘not interested in regionalizing’ with Millis
Any possibility of a merger of the Millis Public Schools with the Holliston Public School District was put to rest in an email on Feb. 14 to Millis School Committee Chair Robyn Briggs from Holliston School Committee Chair Daniel Alfred.
In that email, reviewed by Local Town Pages, Alfred said, “I would like to definitely state that the HSC [Holliston School Committee] is not [emphasis] interested in regionalizing the Holliston Public Schools with the Millis Public Schools, either in its entirety or just at the high school level.”
In the correspondence, Alfred said Briggs mentioned the idea of regionalization and he presented the idea to the HSC for discussion, especially since Millis had been accepted into the Massachusetts School Building Authority program for a possible renovation or replacement of its Middle/High school.
Alfred’s letter continued, “Since then, however, we have learned that a new MSBA application would be required for a regional high school, making your current MSBA invitation inapplicable for this purpose. Additionally, Millis has experienced a second failed override in the span of six months, which raises significant concerns about whether your residents are prepared to finance such an endeavor.”
