8/3/2019 DrJohnsonToMSBA

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September 30, 2011

Ms. Katherine P. Craven

Executive Director

Massachusetts School Building Authority

40 Broad Street, Suite 500

Boston, MA 02109

Dear Ms. Craven:

We write in response to the communication from Associate General Counsel Christine Nolan (July 18, 2011) regarding our facilities

planning efforts. Specifically, we were asked to provide details about our plans to use facilities, particularly those that we have

recently closed or repurposed. Additionally, she requested information about our plans for future use of our buildings, especially thosethat are currently vacant.

We would like to request an extension until November 30, 2011, to give you a complete facility reuse plan. In the meantime, we will

provide answers to all the other questions you raised, and will share an update on our reuse proposals by October 14, 2011, with a

formal reuse plan by November 30, 2011.

As you may be aware, we began a public discussion with our School Committee and our students, families, school staff and

community stakeholders about the best use of our currently-vacant buildings. In July, we shared a proposal to the School Committee

to repurpose the Hyde Park Education Complex, and we have been holding meetings with families and stakeholders throughout

August and September to gather feedback on this proposal.

We see the Hyde Park Education Complex as a jewel in our portfolio of school facilities, due in large part to the extensive renovations

that MSBA supported in 1999. We intend to use HPEC to house one of our district schools in the Fall of 2012; the proposal we arecurrently exploring is for HPEC to become the new home of the Boston Latin Academy, one of the premier public secondary schools

in Boston and in the entire nation.

That said, we are not yet finished with our public engagement and planning process, and therefore are not able to give you a definitive

plan for the re-use of all of our facilities at this date. We intend to provide a preliminary update to our School Committee on October

12, 2011, including a more robust description of our plans for how we will use our facilities to further our academic plan. We will

send a copy of that presentation to you that week, after it has been presented to the School Committee. We anticipate holding

additional community meetings to get feedback as well as have the School Committee accept this proposal. We will send you an

updated and final description of our re-use plan by November 30, 2011.

The attachments provide answers to most of the specific questions that you raised in your July 18, 2011 letter. Please let me know if 

you need clarification on any of this information; our staff will be happy to discuss this in detail with you.

Thank you, again, for the support that the Massachusetts School Building Authority has provided to the Boston Public Schools. We

look forward to continuing to work together to ensure that all our students receive the high quality education they deserve in equally

high quality facilities and learning environments.

Sincerely,

Cc: Matthew Donovan Carol R. Johnson

Christine Nolan Superintendent

oston Public SchoolsOffice of the Superintendent