School Committee member Joe Bevilaqua should be commended for offering suggestions for cutting costs, and encouraged to continue to look for ways to trim the school department's budget.
But we urge Bevilaqua and his School Committee colleagues to abandon any further suggestion of moving the city's special education programs into the Bartlett School.
The city pays $229,000 a year to the Archdiocese of Boston for use of the building. In return, it receives a building that meets its needs, a receptive and helpful landlord and enough out-of-district tuition to cover the rent bill.
The Bartlett School on Washington Street is a a century-old schoolhouse filled with charm. It is also ill-equipped for a modern educational program.
Its only student restrooms are in the basement, accessible by wooden stairs warped by the footsteps of thousands of children over 100 years.
It is too small to house the roughly 105 students of the TEACH and Alternative School programs run at the St. James School, who require an 8 to 1 student-to-teacher ratio and therefore more classroom space than the Bartlett can provide, not to mention space for student "time out" and counseling sessions and other services required by the program's students.
Haverhill Special Education Director Maury Covino told Gazette Editor Donna Capodelupo that the building would fail to meet state standards for handicap accessibility and that the cost to retrofit the building to make it suitable for licensure would be prohibitive.
Covino said it is possible that once necessary changes were made to the building, the Bartlett would be adequate for one of the two programs offered at St. James.
It seems to us that would eliminate much of the cost-saving that comes from having both programs share one building. TEACH and the Alternative School split the annual rent bill. They share a secretary, school nurse and custodian.
Alternative School Principal John DePolo told Capodelupo that special education directors from other districts are impressed when visiting the St. James set-up. In fact, the amount of tuition that Haverhill receives is due to the amenities that the physical space of the St. James School provides, DePolo said.
Moving into a building that would eliminate things like a culinary arts program and wood shop could reduce the number of out-of-district placements, cutting tuition payments.
Finally, the move would take away services and opportunities that are critical to this particular student population.
For all these reasons, a move from the St. James School on Primrose Street, which offers adequate space, a cafeteria, gymnasium, athletic fields, wood shop and science lab, to the Bartlett School, which offers none of those things, would cost much more than it would save.
The winds of change are blowing
The arrival of Pedro's, a company that manufactures and sells bicycle care products and tools, provides a glimpse into the possibility of a new Haverhill: a city that looks to the future as readily as to its past.
Pedro's CEO Chris Zigmont seems to have enough energy and conviction to pull the city into one where people ride bicycles or public transportation to work more frequently than they drive their cars, where corporate responsibility and civic involvement are simply business as usual, and where regard for the profit sheet doesn't eliminate regard for the environment.
Zigmont and company will set up shop downtown in the Burgess Building, better known by many as the Nofsker Building since the 141-145 Essex St. address was purchased by developer Bill Nofsker. Their office, painted in lively shades of golds, reds and oranges, occupies the rear of the first floor.
The company's presence there is a breath of fresh air — literally and figuratively. Zigmont asked project manager Lisa Fitzpatrick to replace frozen-closed factory windows with ones that could open to let in sunlight and the breeze.
It is a fitting metaphor.
Zigmont told Gazette reporter Nathan Ritzko that Pedro's "puts its money where its mouth is." Its move to Haverhill was inspired in part by the city's fledgling effort to make the city more bicycle-friendly, a project in which Pedro's will "lead by example," Zigmont said.
Already, the company has agreed to provide bicycle racks for installation on city streets to make them more attractive to residents who might want to bike downtown for a meal or a shopping trip.
Pedro's employees are likely to be a regular sight on their lunch-time rides, Zigmont said, noting that neighbors are welcome to join in. The downtown location was attractive, Zigmont said, because of the variety of cuisines available within walking or riding distance.
When Zigmont noticed that the front of Pedro's new home is the location of the local Community Action office, he started making plans to set up bicycling-related activities for the children of families served there.
And when Pedro's opens its new home to its neighbors, the tour will highlight the eco-friendly renovations that will include carpet tiles made with 100 percent recycled materials, low-VOC (volatile organic compound) paints, office cubicles made from bamboo, low-volume toilets and a washing machine to launder towels so that paper product purchases — and disposal — can be kept to a minimum.
The downtown office will focus on research and development, while another location in the Ward Hill Industrial Park, will house the company's storage and shipping activities.
The city and Fitzpatrick courted Pedro's for more than a year, and deserve credit for recognizing a good fit between the company and the city — and then selling Zigmont and the other company leaders on the move.
