A New Medford High School

The Medford High School Comprehensive Building Committee has been meeting for over a year on a regular basis to discuss the building of a new high school in Medford.

I am the City Council representative on the Medford High School Comprehensive Building Committee, and I am really excited to tell you what has been done so far. We have already explored different locations for the high school, hired an Operations Project Management team, and begun our discussion of the architecture firms that have responded to our Request for Proposals for a new high school. It is incredibly exciting to be part of this work - this long overdue work.

We are so lucky to live here now, to have the chance to say yes to furthering opportunities to educate our students in such a unique way. Our students have opportunities that students in other cities and towns dream about. Thanks to the overrides that passed last year, high school students in Medford do not have to make the choice between a career in automotive repair and their love of trombone. Our students can do both robotics and painting. They can do business marketing and theater. They can play violin and learn cosmetology. Medford Public Schools gives them a chance to open themselves up to all the opportunities they want to explore. The next step ahead of us is to educate them in a building that isn’t falling apart around them.

The first non-volunteer job I did for Medford was working as the Executive Assistant to the Superintendent of Schools under Dr. Marice Edouard-Vincent. I worked closely with the School Committee and I spent every day in Medford High School. I saw firsthand what kind of condition that building was in, and still is in: my office had no windows, and many rooms in that building, including classrooms, have no windows. The temperature is all over the place. The wifi frequently doesn’t work. There are whole unusable wings of the building full of scraps of marble and non-working showers and spare lockers and flickering lights like in a horror movie. 

Our students and families in Medford have called Medford High School home over the course of decades, and I know many more will do so. But I can’t help but ask myself, why are we asking our students and families in Medford to continue to make the best of a bad environment when we could do right by them instead? 

Elected officials in Medford must continue on the path of giving them what they deserve. The roadmap is there - other cities and towns across Massachusetts have worked with the Massachusetts State Building Authority to co-fund the project. Feasibility studies are underway in collaboration with all types of experts ready to help better meet the needs of our students.

Even more crucial than a good plan is action. This election will determine if there are elected officials on the City Council who unequivocally support taking the necessary steps to fund a new high school. If we lack the votes needed on the next iteration of the City Council for a debt exclusion, we will not see a new high school that will meet Medford’s needs. I will support a new high school, and it is critical that all the incoming City Councilors and School Committee members support a new high school too. 

Thanks for reading, friends! And remember, funding our schools is the best way to guarantee a hopeful, happy, prosperous, and vibrant community of the future!