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Photo courtesy of Westwood Public Schools. Westwood's School Committee will be pursuing state funding assistance for rebuilding or renovating Thurston Middle School.
1-21-2026 12:08am
Westwood Public Schools to Submit Statement of Interest to the MSBA
Darlene Cancell
Editor
Thanks to Westwood Public Schools for contributing this news to Westwood Minute.
The Westwood School Committee (SC) has voted to submit a Statement of Interest (SOI) to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), asking that it be accepted into the MSBA School Building Grant Program to address the facility needs of the Thurston Middle School. The MSBA is a quasi-government agency that provides financial assistance for capital improvement projects in Massachusetts’ public schools. The MSBA partially funded the construction of Westwood’s Pine Hill Elementary School.
Earlier this year, Westwood Schools Superintendent Timothy Piwowar released the results of a feasibility study which assessed the status and needs of all the district’s buildings. “One of the goals was to identify capital improvement needs for schools across the district and create a prioritized list of work with estimated costs,” said Piwowar. “The other was to develop a long-range plan to address these needs.”
“When we conducted a similar survey in 2015, the study identified three schools that were most in need of capital improvements: Hanlon, Deerfield and Sheehan, with Hanlon ultimately selected as the subject school,” said School Committee Chair Maya Plotkin. “At that point, Thurston, while admittedly old, seemed to be in fairly good shape. Because of that study, we were able to solve for Hanlon and Deerfield with the construction of Pine Hill, which left Sheehan to be addressed. However, over the past few years, Thurston seems to have put its hand up. We’ve seen facilities issues that have disrupted teaching and learning at Thurston as well as large ticket repair items. We haven’t seen issues to that extent at Sheehan."
Plotkin pointed out that the School Committee ultimately chose Thurston to be the subject of the SOI also because it serves every WPS student and is older than Sheehan.
The facilities study showed that of all school buildings, Thurston has the largest number of undersized spaces at 68 percent and the fewest number of spaces that are correctly sized for today’s needs. What’s more, Thurston is over capacity, and would require the addition of five modular classrooms by 2033 to keep class size at 23 students. WPS estimates that capital improvement and maintenance to Thurston for the next 10 years would require nearly $74 million compared to $54.8 million for Martha Jones and Sheehan combined.
In addition to the facilities study, the School District conducted a town-wide survey to understand how residents felt about a new SOI for an MSBA project. Of the 1550 residents who completed the survey, 91 percent said they supported building a new Thurston Middle School over a new Sheehan Elementary School.
“We are in very early stages of what could be a multi-year project,” said School Committee Chair Maya Plotkin, who cited the results of the survey, “and we were very encouraged by the large turnout in residents responding to the survey. Ultimately, the School Committee agreed with the majority of residents.”
The SOI will be written by the WPS administrative team. The School Committee will then review it and present it to the Select Board, which must vote to approve it. Plotkin expects the Select Board’s review to be included on the agenda for a March meeting to ensure that the SOI can be submitted to the MSBA before the April 17, 2026 deadline.
“We expect to hear in December of 2026 if we are accepted into the program,” said Plotkin. “Then we would move into the eligibility phase, when we would begin engagement with the community again, this time on this particular project, as we will need community support to advance into the feasibility phase.”
Plotkin added that the feasibility phase is when a new School Building Committee would be formed and an owner's project manager selected. The feasibility phase will also identify options regarding new construction versus renovation and repair, and review size and enrollment and grade configuration. Based on the MSBA timeline, construction would begin in 2030, borrowing would begin in 2031 and the construction project would be completed in 2032.
“Our guiding principle is to find the most educationally appropriate and cost-effective solutions for our school buildings so we can continue to provide a top-tier education for all Westwood public school students,” said Piwowar.
