Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

School Proposal Will Create Unsafe Conditions.

As an educational advocate I work with children who are under the care and protection of the State, and I visit schools across Massachusetts in both suburban and inner-city settings. I have been a child advocate for the last 22 years, I deeply care for all students, and I am always
concerned about the quality of education; I am invested in making sure that children are kept safe in all environments.

The proposal to relocate Dale Street School to Elm Street has raised many traffic concerns among Wheelock and town-wide residents alike, but little focus has been put on the overall safety of the
area. Those of us who live nearby know the situation best.

We live on Elm between Wheelock and the one-way bridge that crosses over Mine Brook. It is a very narrow and winding road, and cars traveling west over the hill tend to speed up as the road widens approaching the Wheelock school zone. While we have had our own close calls merely exiting our driveway, we are more concerned about the safety for walkers, runners and cyclists that use Elm Street on a regular basis – and especially so after one of Medfield’s own school principals was hit by a car while running on the road.

With a proposed doubling of students from nearly 400 to 800 all one site (and possibly beyond 1,200 if projections play out), it’s easy to see how an already unsafe situation will become significantly worse. And that’s just based on cars traveling on Elm Street. Our community has a responsibility to look at the student and neighborhood safety issues associated with an estimated 250 parking places; an area that has six soccer fields, lacrosse, and baseball fields; and hundreds of acres of biking, hiking, and walking trails in year-round use.

With the proposal for a second school on Elm Street, I find it all too easy to visualize children running around parking lots during dismissal time as cars line up to pick up students, or children
on foot or on bikes attempt to navigate the heavy traffic on unsafe roads. If traffic is moving, cars and buses will race up and down Elm Street; if traffic is stopped on the road from the school driveway to South Street, cars will attempt to drive around them without paying much attention to the possible presence of children.

The Wheelock School area with its beautiful open space should be a fun and safe place for our children to explore – not turned into a city-like site requiring campus monitoring, traffic lights,
destruction of an historic country road, and the paving over of green space for parking lots. All of this creates an unsafe, chaotic and highly undesirable environment for children, families, and Medfield residents overall.

Victoria Lia, 55 Elm Street, Medfield