Download a printable fact sheet here.

Quick Facts

• ​Brookline schools are overcrowded and the Driscoll school building is at the end of its life.  To address both of these issues, Brookline will hold a Town-wide special election on December 10, 2019, to seek voter approval of a new, larger building to house the Driscoll School.  We urge everyone to vote YES!
• The new Driscoll building would be sized to educate about 750 students in grades K-8 plus 50 pre-kindergarten students - an increase of about 200 students over the current school, relieving overcrowding at other schools across town. 
• Students would continue to attend school in the existing building during adjacent construction of the new one (scheduled completion late 2022), and then they would move to the new building, and the old building would be demolished and turned into outdoor playground/green space around the new building.
• The Driscoll School Building Committee closely considered whether to renovate or build new, and decided to build new for several reasons.
  • A renovation + expansion of the building was examined closely and estimated to be MORE expensive than building new. 
  • Building new allows the students to remain in the current Driscoll building while the new one is built.  This saves money, allows the project to go faster, and lets families continue to walk to school.  
  • The new building would be Fossil Fuel Free for our climate future.
  • Building new allows us to increase the playspace on the property by 34% (24,500 square feet), a benefit for the community and the students who attend Driscoll. 
• The proposed project will increase property tax bills by 3.5% of the current value.
  • The median single-family home tax bill would increase by approximately $435/year.  
  • The median condominium unit tax bill would increase by approximately $140/year.
  • The median commercial property tax bill would increase by approximately $1,067/year.
• Driscoll-4 is just the next significant piece of the Town-wide school capacity solution.  Build Brookline’s Future is committed to supporting not only the Driscoll-4 project but also the renovation and expansion of Pierce (partially funded by state money) and such other projects as are needed to fully meet North Brookline and South Brookline capacity needs.
• The project cannot proceed further without voter-approved funding.  Thus, if voters were to reject the ballot question on December 10th, Town and PSB leaders would have to start working on alternative plans for Driscoll and for Town-wide elementary school capacity.
• Regarding the schools operating budget deficit: Even when operating budgets are tight, it’s important to continue to rebuild our school facilities before they become so severely degraded that they require extensive annual maintenance that exacerbates our budget woes, or worse, can no longer be used.  We are at this point with Driscoll: the current HVAC system is so aged that should it fail before a new school is built, it will require a multi-million dollar emergency heating system replacement, or the school will be unusable.   Brookline voters have shown clear understanding of the need to fund simultaneous capital projects and operating budgets; in May 2015 Brookline overwhelmingly approved an operating override AND the debt exclusion for the then-Devotion School renovation, and again in May 2018 for the operating budget + BHS.   The operating budget deficit obviously needs to be addressed and may require voters to consider a separate tax override but that is not a reason to forgo voting yes on Driscoll. Build Brookline’s Future is committed to supporting our schools' operating and capital needs.

sample ballot and funding authorization

Voters will see a ballot like this - the exact amount of the project is not included per state law.

In addition to the public referendum on December 10, Town Meeting (Brookline's legislature) must also approve the funding authorization.  This approval vote occurred November 19, and passed 203-13-10 (94% yes!)  The Town Meeting vote provides more details on the project beyond what is allowed on the ballot.  The wording of the vote is below.   

"That the Town appropriate, borrow, or transfer from available funds up to $115,300,000 to be expended under the direction of the Building Commission, with any necessary contracts over $100,000 to be approved by the Select Board and the School Committee, to reconstruct the Driscoll School as a four section school, with the understanding that the final stages of project design, which follow voter and Town Meeting approval, will include efforts to further optimize the project’s design in terms of both program delivery and cost efficiency, provided that such appropriation shall be contingent on the approval by Town voters of a debt exclusion vote to fund the debt service on said borrowing."

All frequently asked questions

What’s going on?

• Brookline will hold a Town-wide special election on December 10, 2019, to seek voter approval of the funding needed to build a new, larger building to house the Driscoll School.  We urge everyone to vote YES!

 What is the Driscoll School?

• Driscoll is a Brookline public elementary school located in Washington Square (between Washington St. and Westbourne Terrace, just north of Beacon St.).  It presently serves approximately 600 students in grades kindergarten through 8th, with three classrooms per grade level at most grades ( one grade has a fourth classroom.) 
• Driscoll’s enrollment has grown significantly in the past decade.  Between 1981 and 2009, Driscoll’s enrollment has ranged up and down between roughly 360 students and 440 students.  Since 2010, it has grown from roughly 440 to the current 600 K-8 students (a 36% increase). 
• ​More information about the school is available at: www.brookline.k12.ma.us/driscoll

​What is the project for which voters are being asked to approve funding?

• The Town plans to build a new school building on the current Driscoll property, which would be sized to educate roughly 750 students in grades K-8 (four classrooms per grade level) plus 3 classrooms (~50 students) of pre-kindergarten students in the Brookline Early Education Program (BEEP) - an increase of 200 students over the current school.
• The new Driscoll would be a 4-section school, which we have operated here in Brookline for decades.  We recently opened the new Coolidge Corner School as a 5-section school, so Driscoll-4 would not be an outlier in terms of size.
• Students would continue to attend school in the existing building during construction of the new one, and then the school would move to the new building and the old building would be demolished and turned into outdoor playground/green space around the new building.
• The total cost that voters are being asked to approve for that project is $115.3 million--to be raised by the Town through issuance of municipal bonds and paid off over 25 years.  Voters are being asked to authorize that borrowing.
• More information on the project is available at: www.brookline.k12.ma.us/Page/2353

 How did the Town come up with this plan?

• A Driscoll School Building Committee co-chaired by Select Board member Heather Hamilton and School Committee member Susan Wolf Ditkoff and consisting of teachers, parents, community members, the Driscoll principal, and key staff members from the Public Schools of Brookline and other Town departments met frequently in Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 to assess feasibility and come up with the current schematic design of the project.  They worked with an experienced school architect and toured other recent school buildings in the area to develop and test ideas.
• More information about the process is available at: www.brookline.k12.ma.us/Page/2410

If the Town votes in favor of the project, what happens next?

• Two phases of work have been completed already: feasibility study and schematic design.
• If voters approve the project on December 10th, the following would then occur:
  1. The Building Committee and architect would spend the next 6-12 months to create detailed project designs and construction drawings.  The public would be welcome to attend Building Committee meetings, read Building Committee updates, and submit feedback on the design choices.  Changes to the schematic design will be considered during that process, such as potentially adding more space for staff offices.  
  2. Once the design phase is complete, construction of the new building would start.  
  3. The Town would proceed to issue and sell the bonds that will finance the project.
  4. The most recent estimated timeline for the project, if approved by voters and Town Meeting in late 2019, puts completion in late 2022.

 If the Town votes against the project, what happens next?

• The project cannot proceed further without voter-approved funding.  Thus, if voters were to reject the ballot question on December 10th, Town and PSB leaders would have to start working on alternative plans for Driscoll and for Town-wide elementary school capacity.  We would be “back to the drawing board” in that sense. 
• We are working very hard to prevent this from happening, and we are encouraged by the many strong showings of support the Driscoll-4 project has received already, including:
  1. A nearly-unanimous vote of Town Meeting in December 2018, 
  2. A more than ⅔ vote of Town Meeting in May 2019 in support of a resolution to bring Driscoll back to the voters after a bundled, multi-project ballot question failed in May,  
  3. A 9-0-0 vote of the School Committee in September 2019, 
  4. A 4-0-1 vote of the Select Board in October 2019, and
  5. A 203-13-10 vote of Town Meeting in November 2019 to approve the $115.3M bond authorization pending voter approval.

 Why not just renovate the existing Driscoll building rather than build a whole new one?

• The Driscoll School Building Committee closely considered both options and decided to build new.  They made that decision for several reasons.
  1. First, the current Driscoll building is at (or past) the end of its expected useful life.  The original building was constructed in the early 1900s (a century ago) and though it has been expanded and renovated several times since then, it is not in good shape.  Most of the basic structures of the building are between roughly 70 and more than 100 years old--beyond their expected useful lifetimes. Just walking by the building on the outside now shows how worn down it has become--with crumbling masonry at the rooflines as one example.  A renovation of the building (plus the needed expansion to 4 sections) was examined closely by the Building Committee and was estimated to be MORE expensive than building new. The Building Committee found that a full renovation up to building code of the existing building, with expanded capacity to serve 4 sections worth of K-8 students, would have cost $95 - $105 million even without adding structured parking or making the building fossil-fuel-free.  So building new is more cost-effective than trying to renovate and expand the existing building.
  2. Second, a significant advantage of building new is that is allows the students to remain in the current Driscoll building while the new one is built.  This saves money, allows the project to go faster, and lets families continue to walk to school.  
  3. ​Building new allows us to increase the playspace on the property by 34% (24,500 square feet), a benefit for the community and the students who attend Driscoll. 
  4. Town Meeting also voted to make the new building Fossil Fuel Free--an investment of several million dollars to reduce our carbon emissions which could not have been accomplished by renovating the existing Driscoll building.

 Why build the new building so much bigger than the current Driscoll School enrollment?

• We have a Town-wide elementary school overcrowding problem.  
• Our elementary school enrollment grew quickly and considerably starting around 2010.  Between 1981 and 2009, total grades K-8 enrollment across Town fluctuated between roughly 3,400 and 4,400 students.
• Between 2009 and 2016, total grades K-8 enrollment grew from roughly 4,400 to roughly 5,500 students and it has stayed basically flat since that time.  Also between 2009 and 2016, we added approximately 600 seats of K-8 capacity by renovating and expanding the Heath, Lawrence, Runkle, and Coolidge Corner Schools.
• At a total K-8 enrollment around 5,500 students, our schools are overcrowded by approximately 500 students right now (measured by capacity of both classrooms and common spaces).  To educate those students, our schools have been forced to convert closets, offices, and other substandard spaces into classrooms and educational support spaces, have been forced to increase the number of lunch periods (with some students starting lunch mid-morning) due to limited cafeteria capacity, to remove BEEP pre-K classes from school buildings to leased and other off-site spaces, and to make many other such adjustments.
• The Driscoll-4 plan that voters are being asked to approve on December 10th will take a big bite out of that overcrowding problem, by:
  1. Solving existing overcrowding at Driscoll (currently undersized by as much as 150 seats) PLUS 
  2. Creating capacity for an additional 150 or more K-8 students, which can be used to relieve some of the current overcrowding at Pierce, Lawrence, Lincoln, or other schools.
• The new Driscoll would be a 4-section school, which we have operated here in Brookline for decades.  We recently opened the new Coolidge Corner School as a 5-section school, so Driscoll-4 would not be an outlier in terms of size.
• More information is available at: www.brookline.k12.ma.us/cms/lib/MA01907509/Centricity/Domain/25/11.29SuptReport.pdf

 Will this plan cause major school redistricting?

• No.  Pierce is our most overcrowded school and its district is right next door to Driscoll’s district, with shared buffer zones.  And Pierce also shares buffer zones with Lawrence and Lincoln--all in a geographically compact, but very densely populated, part of Brookline.  Therefore, extra capacity at Driscoll can provide significant relief to Pierce, Lawrence, and/or Lincoln without sending any students to schools materially further away from home than their currently assigned schools are.  School walkability and compact districting can be preserved and extra vehicle trips to and from school on account of school redistricting can be largely or entirely avoided.

 Why not wait for a while to see what happens with student enrollment and other potential sites instead of building now?

• There are several good reasons to move quickly.
• First, as explained above, both Driscoll and the Town more generally have a major elementary school overcrowding problem right now.  Even if K-8 enrollment levels start to trend downward, as has been predicted, it would take years and years of such a trend to fully close the current gap without building new capacity.  Driscoll is the next project ready to go that can help address that overcrowding. The longer we wait on Driscoll, the longer school kids must be educated in substandard spaces.
• Second, construction costs have been rising quickly in the Boston area--estimated most recently at 10% (or even more) per year.  Assuming that inflation continues at that rate, each week we delay Driscoll construction is costing taxpayers more than $200,000 in additional construction cost ($~110 million x 10% per year / 52 weeks per year).
• Third, the current Driscoll building is crumbling and is in danger of large-scale failures in the next few years--such as roof failures, a complete HVAC system failure, etc.  The longer we wait on this project, the more likely we are to have to spend millions of dollars more, just to keep the current building limping along adequately, without the benefit of the needed overall renovation and expansion.

 How much will this plan increase our tax bills?

• The proposed Driscoll project’s estimated bottom-line impact on tax bills is approximately 3.5%, which plays out as follows (as of mid-November 2019):
  1. The median single-family home tax bill would increase by approximately $435/year (~3.5%).  The median single-family home is assessed at $1,622,350.
  2. The median condominium unit tax bill would increase by approximately $140/year (~3.5%).  The median condo unit is assessed at $707,500.
  3. The median commercial property tax bill would increase by approximately $1,067/year (~3.5%).  The median commercial property is assessed at $2,003,300.
  4. Properties valued below these median levels would see smaller-$$ increases in their annual tax bills (~3.5% higher than their current bills).
  5. These calculations are based on a 25-year bond of approximately $120M at a very conservative 4% interest rate, when Brookline has typically been paying 3%--so it is very likely actual tax bill impacts would be lower than shown above.
• Important context:
  1. Brookline’s residential and commercial property tax rates have actually been dropping every year since 2013.
  2. The current residential rate of 0.937% is the lowest residential rate Brookline has charged since before 2000 and is lower than the residential rate charged by 90+% of other cities and towns in Massachusetts.
  3. The current commercial rate of 1.537% is also the lowest commercial rate Brookline has charged since before 2000--in fact, it is just 55% of the rate that was charged in 1999.
  4. Brookline is one of only a handful of communities in Massachusetts that uses a residential exemption to further lessen the tax burden on owner-occupied homes--meaning that the effective residential tax rate is even lower than 0.937% (especially for those owners who occupy less expensive homes).  Brookline also provides additional exemptions to seniors and people with disabilities.  
  5. Brookline’s average tax bills do increase year-to-year but that is driven completely by even faster year-to-year growth in Brookline property values.  Brookline property owners have seen strong growth in the resale, borrowing, and other asset values of their properties, of which tax bills have become a smaller and smaller percentage over time.  And Brookline is continuing to look at ways to improve and expand options for residents on fixed incomes to use increased home values themselves to help pay taxes.

I have heard that the architect working on this project is really expensive—should we start over with a less expensive architect instead?

• The Select Board, the School Committee, and Advisory Committee (which is the Town’s finance committee) and many others have examined the cost/benefit of this project thoroughly and approved it.
• The proposed Driscoll-4 project has been compared against several similar recent projects that are listed in the Massachusetts School Building Authority database and the Building Committee and other responsible boards have found that Driscoll-4 was coming in around the median cost per square foot.  
• Don’t forget that part of the project cost is driven by our choice to invest in the world’s climate future by going fossil-fuel-free--which differentiates the Driscoll-4 project from most otherwise-comparable school projects.
• In short, this architect is not remarkably more expensive than others the Town could have used--and restarting the design with a new architect now would actually cost us more in terms of delay and construction cost inflation.

 Is the design final?

• No - the design will continue to be modified and refined by the architect and Building Committee during the 6-12 months of detailed design phase following a successful vote. The public will have significant opportunities to submit questions and feedback to the architect and Building Committee in the course of that work.
• As one example, the Building Committee and architect may look at how to add more office space for Public Schools of Brookline staff.
• Continued development of the design after the public approval is the typical process.  A recent example of this was for the High School project, which was approved by voters in May 2018, before there was a final decision on whether the new building would extend over the adjacent T tracks.  Following the vote, the decision was made to extend the building, and the use of the building was modified as well from exclusively 9th grade use to a multi-grade use. The funds for this important work are contained within the total project funds that voters approve.  To do the same design adjustments for Driscoll, voters must approve the funding.  

  What about the atrium in the design?

• The current design includes a multi-story learning commons/atrium intended to help unite the various floors of the building into a single school.  That design has been vetted by the Building Committee through, among other things, observations of how similar design concepts have worked at other schools in the greater Boston area.
• That plan will continue to be reviewed and refined through the detailed design phase following a successful vote.
• The Building Committee, the architect, and Town’s Building Commissioner will all ensure that the final plan is safe for students and appropriate for an educational environment--including to appropriately serve students with behavioral challenges and sensory needs.

Is a 4-section school too big for the site?  If our schools are so overcrowded, why not build a 5-section Driscoll School instead of a 4-section?

• No.  The Building Committee and architect have come up with a schematic design that fits a 4-section K-8 school, plus three BEEP classrooms, nicely on the existing (4.0-acre) parcel of land--and actually increases the amount of usable outdoor space per student through better overall use of space.
• At 4-sections (roughly 750 K-8 students), Driscoll would have approximately 191 K-8 students per acre of site space--including building footprint, paved space, and playground/greenspace.  That is basically identical to the current ratio at the Runkle School on Fisher Hill.
• However, a 5-section school (roughly 945 K-8 students) clearly would be too large for the site.  That would yield a ratio of 238 students per acre, which would be more than twice our Town-wide average for elementary schools and 25% more dense than our next most dense elementary school (Runkle) currently is.  Coolidge Corner School, our only elementary school currently designed to house 5 sections, sits on a 6.7-acre parcel--68% larger than Driscoll’s.  

What about playground and greenspace on the site?

• As noted in the prior response, the current plan allows for more playground and greenspace at Driscoll versus present state (an increase of 24,500sf (34%).
• Current Driscoll has 72,500 sf of usable play area for 600 K-8 students (~120 sf per student).  The Driscoll-4 plan has 97,000 sf for ~755 students (~128 sf per student). In other words, the project would increase the amount usable outdoor space per student, not decrease it.  And compare the Runkle School, which currently serves 582 K-8 students with 40,500 sf of usable play area (~70 sf per student). Source: https://www.brookline.k12.ma.us/cms/lib/MA01907509/Centricity/Domain/722/1_Driscoll%20SD%20Report%20190522.pdf   (page 72) (enrollment figures updated to October 2019 and ratios recalculated).

Didn’t we already vote on this in May 2019?  Weren’t the precincts around Driscoll full of NO voters in May?

• In May 2019, the Town voted against a single ballot question that bundled Driscoll-4 together with a project to build a new elementary school at the Baldwin site near Rt 9 and Hammond St. in Chestnut Hill.  The Baldwin project generated much more controversy and public opposition than the Driscoll project did, but voters were not given a chance to vote on the two separately.
• In that election, the core Driscoll precinct (P11) actually voted in favor of the ballot question in May, notwithstanding the fact that Baldwin was included along with Driscoll.  Town Meeting voted overwhelmingly in support of Driscoll-4 last December, and then in May more than 80% of the P10, P11, P12, and P13 TMMs (all of whose precincts include some Driscoll territory) supported the Driscoll-4 resolution (49-8-1). 
• The upcoming December 10th election finally allows voters to cast ballots on the Driscoll project alone, and we expect that removal of Baldwin from the mix will turn many NO votes from May into YES votes.  We already know that the leaders of the NO campaign in May are campaigning for a YES vote on December 10th.

Should we wait until a comprehensive new school capacity plan is established, including to see what happens with Newbury College?

• No.  As Interim Superintendent of Schools Ben Lummis has repeatedly told the Select Board, we absolutely should not wait to see what happens with Newbury or other sites.  We should proceed with Driscoll-4 now, while we keep exploring other capacity expansion options elsewhere.
• With respect to Newbury, there are months (perhaps years) more of negotiations and Town governance process to come before we know whether the Town will be able to acquire all or part of that parcel of land and, if so, how the Town will use what it acquires.
• Otherwise, the Pierce School expansion project is proceeding in partnership with the Massachusetts School Building Authority, but it won’t be ready for a vote until spring 2021 and for construction until a couple of years later--by which time we can finish Driscoll-4 and have the extra 150 seats ready to relieve pressure from Pierce before the Pierce construction.
• Also, the Public Schools of Brookline is in the midst of further analysis of enrollment trends, using an expert outside consultant, to help better assess how much additional school capacity is needed (beyond the 500 seats we are already overcrowded), and on what timeline.  That analysis will better inform the discussion around a 9th school or other options to expand capacity beyond Driscoll and Pierce.
• Build Brookline’s Future is committed to supporting not only the Driscoll-4 project but also the renovation and expansion of Pierce (partially funded by state $$) and such other projects as are needed to fully meet North Brookline and South Brookline capacity needs.

 Why should I vote YES on December 10th when Driscoll-4 does nothing for South Brookline needs?

• It is true that the Baker School in South Brookline presently is overcrowded and that plans are in place to expand Hancock Village at some point soon, which would bring more students to Baker.
• However, the other elementary school that serves South Brookline, Heath, does not have a full (three-section) enrollment, and both Baker and Heath enrollments have generally been trending downward in recent years--opening up more space for South Brookline students.
• And Driscoll-4 is just the next significant piece of the Town-wide school capacity solution, not the whole thing.  Build Brookline’s Future is committed to supporting not only the Driscoll-4 project but also the renovation and expansion of Pierce (partially funded by state $$) and such other projects as are needed to fully meet North Brookline and South Brookline capacity needs.

What would this new building let us do?

• Put the need to renovate Driscoll behind us for decades.
• Fully resolve current overcrowding at Driscoll--providing appropriate educational spaces to all students there.
• Relieve overcrowding at Pierce, Lawrence, and Lincoln by at least 150 more students--while maintaining walkability and avoiding significant, disruptive redistricting.
• Bring three BEEP pre-K classrooms back to Driscoll (there are none there as of this year). 
• Make a positive investment in Brookline’s (and the world’s) climate future by setting a fossil-fuel-free standard for public buildings to come.

Does the neighborhood around Driscoll support or oppose the project?

• As one would expect with any such project, neighborhood sentiment is not unanimous.  However, many Driscoll neighbors, including some direct abutters to the property, were among the more than 500 Town residents who signed an open letter in support of the Driscoll-4 project this past May. 
• Just walk the blocks around Driscoll and you will see many yard signs in support of a YES vote on December 10th.

Why are we rebuilding Driscoll when we have an operating budget deficit?

• Even when operating budgets are tight, it’s important to continue to rebuild our school facilities before they become so severely degraded that they require extensive annual maintenance that exacerbates our budget woes, or worse, can no longer be used.  We are at this point with Driscoll: the current HVAC system is so aged that should it fail before a new school is built, it will require a multi-million dollar emergency heating system replacement, or the school will be unusable.  
• Brookline voters have shown clear understanding of the need to fund simultaneous capital projects and operating budgets; in May 2015 Brookline overwhelmingly approved an operating override AND the debt exclusion for the then-Devotion School renovation, and again in May 2018 for the operating budget + BHS.   The reason for separate votes is that the pools of funds for capital projects and operating expenses are not interchangeable (capital projects are mostly funded from long-term bonds issued by the Town.) 
• The operating budget deficit obviously needs to be addressed and may require voters to consider a separate tax override but that is not a reason to forgo voting yes on Driscoll. Build Brookline’s Future is committed to supporting our schools' operating and capital needs.