Cunniff School

Parents, Neighbors Have Concerns About Proposal for Cunniff School Renovation

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Parents and neighbors of Cunniff Elementary School got a look at what the school might look like after the renovation project is done, and they had some big questions and concerns about the loss of play area, drop off areas and more. 

Wednesday night the School Building Committee visited the school on the Westside of Watertown to discuss the upcoming renovation and addition of the campus. The board has upcoming meetings planned for Hosmer and Lowell schools. The current favored plan calls for keeping the front classroom wing at Cunniff, tearing down the one-story wing in back and replacing it with a two story wing. Along with classrooms, the project will add a full-size gym, expand the library, and create a music/blackbox theater space, said architect Scott Dunlap of Ai3 Architects. The classrooms in the existing wings will undergo major renovations.

Cunniff School

School Committee Excited by Improvement on MCAS Shown by Watertown Elementary Students

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The elementary school results on the 2018 MCAS test pleased the School Committee, particularly the improvement by students over the last year. Watertown’s principals and administrators presented the results at Monday night’s School Committee meeting. Efforts were made after last year’s MCAS results, said Assistant Superintendent of Teaching, Learning and Assessment Theresa McGuinness. “Last year, when we met to discuss the scores we realized we had a curriculum alignment problem,” McGuinness said.  “We met to see how we could make changes.” The growth in the scores particularly stood out, she said.

Cunniff School

Elementary, High School Projects Take Steps Forward at School Building Committee

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Two votes by the School Building Committee on Wednesday night moved the projects at Watertown’s three elementary schools and at the high school a step closer to being a reality. The projects to renovate and make additions to Hosmer, Lowell and Cunniff elementary schools, which have schematic designs, are ahead of the Watertown High School project, for which designs have yet to be drawn up. High School Project
Wednesday night, the School Building Committee, which oversees the projects, gave its approval to spend $1.6 million on the preliminary design and hiring an owner’s project manager for the WHS project. The Town Council will be asked to give final approval for the money at its Nov. 13 meeting, said Superintendent Dede Galdston.

Cunniff School

Architects Reveal New Design for Hosmer School, Parking Plan for Lowell School

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The designs for Watertown’s three elementary schools have started to become more solid, and in the near future school officials will present them to the communities in and around the schools. Architect Scott Dunlap from Ai3 presented the most recent designs at last week’s School Building Committee meeting. The biggest change comes at Hosmer Elementary School, where the latest design shows a large glassed in area on the northeast corner of the school. “It is an element we are introducing into the front of the building,” Dunlap said. “We are not saying that the glass will go all the way across.

Schools

Conceptual Designs for Renovation of Watertown’s Elementary Schools Approved

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Details of what Watertown’s three elementary schools will look like after they are renovated came more into focus Thursday when the School Building Committee approved the conceptual designs for Hosmer, Cunniff and Lowell elementary schools. With the approval, the architects from Ai3 will move onto the schematic design phase of the project. The conceptual designs provide a guide for where designers will put new additions and which areas will be renovated inside the existing buildings, said Scott Dunlap, principal of Ai3. He added, however, that architects are still “pushing and pulling” the floor plans inside the buildings. Thursday’s meeting began with a walk through of the Hosmer site, where Ai3 had staked out the corners of the proposed new school building that would be built in front of the building with the auditorium and gym, ask you look from Mt.

Police/Fire

Boy Struck by SUV While Heading to Cunniff School, Suffers Minor Injuries

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An 11-year-old boy suffered minor injuries when he was struck by an SUV while on the way to Cunniff School on Wednesday morning. The incident occurred on Highland Street at Copeland Street at about 7:50 a.m. Wednesday, according to Watertown Police Lt. James O’Connor. The incident was witnessed by the boy’s sister. The boy was either riding or walking his bicycle across the street when a Jeep Grand Cherokee heading eastbound struck him. “The child was transported to Children’s Hospital Boston with minor injuries,” O’Connor said.

Cirque du Soleil

Members of Cirque du Soleil Make a Visit to a Watertown School

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A couple members of Cirque du Soleil brought a little bit big top magic to Watertown this week when they visited Cunniff Elementary School. 

Students in the Extended Day Program at Cunniff greeted Kelly McDonald, an acrobat, and Gracie Valdez, artistic director of the latest Cirque show coming to Boston, called Luzia: A Waking Dream of Mexico. During the visit, the pair answered questions from many students, including a few writing a story for Cunniff Kids News, the school’s online newspaper. The children wanted to know things like how to get into the circus, their favorite place they have performed and what happens if you make a mistake during a performance. McDonald said that the children should find something that interests them and then practice hard. “I practiced gymnastics all the way through high school and continued through college,” McDonald said.

Schools

Hosmer Proposed as Swing Space During School Construction Projects

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The architects for the renovation or rebuilding of Watertown’s three elementary schools presented refined conceptual drawings of the schools, and proposed to the School Building Committee that students from other schools go to school at Hosmer School while their school is being renovated. The conceptual plans for Lowell, Cunniff and Hosmer elementary schools includes some new construction and some renovation at each school. Architects from Ai3 shared a schedule that would stagger the start of construction at the three schools so that the new construction at Hosmer would be finished first, freeing up the old section of the school for other schools to use for a few months. Saving money on the project has been a focus since it was discovered that the construction cost estimates in the School Facilities Masterplan done by SMMA in 2016 were much lower than is realistic. Town Manager Michael Driscoll has pledged $120 million for the three elementary schools that would come out of the Town’s budget, and not require a tax increase, but Ai3 estimated the cost of the project would be as much as $180 million.