Town Meeting members voted Monday night, May 6, 2024, to support the new elementary school building project! Needing two-thirds approval in order for the article to pass, Town Meeting representatives voted 98-40 in favor of the project.
This vote follows the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) Board of Directors voting to approve the project scope and budget at its meeting on April 24. Now that the MSBA and Town Meeting have both authorized the project, Stoughton voters will be asked to approve funding the project during a special election on Tuesday, June 11. An affirmative vote on June 11 will officially give the green light for a new elementary school to be built.
The new school will be built for a larger enrollment, allowing us to consolidate the number of elementary schools in Stoughton from five to four (the new building, along with the Dawe, Gibbons, and Hansen), while closing the South and repurposing the Wilkins.
“The Town Meeting vote on Monday night is appreciated as it creates the opportunity for the citizens of Stoughton to vote on this new consolidated elementary school project,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Joseph Baeta said. “The School Building Committee under the leadership of Chair TJ Recupero, Vertex (Owner’s Project Representative), and DRA (Architect) have moved the elementary schools of Stoughton into the 21st century with this plan, which would come to fruition with a positive vote on June 11th.”
If you would like to learn more about this project, please visit the project’s website. The building committee will also be holding two public forums on Tuesday, May 21, 2024. The first will be a virtual forum at 12pm and the second forum will be in-person at 6:30pm at the current South Elementary School, 171 Ash St.
The image above is a rendering of what the new elementary school building would look like at night.