Lexington High School Building: DECISION TIME

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Decision Time: December 8, 2025. Will Lexington approve debt exclusion to fund the BLOOM design for a new high school?

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The initial hurdles have been met. The Select Board has voted to move forward—though not unanimously (more about that later) — and Town Meeting has voted 91% in favor of moving ahead.

The next step is the Debt Exclusion Vote scheduled for December 8. At that time, the community will move ahead or send the project back to the drawing board for further review.

There’s a lot at stake. The BLOOM design has a $660 million price tag. Offsetting that is a $118.8 million grant from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) awarded to Lexington on October 29, 2025, with a potential $2.9 million in contingency funds. If the debt exclusion does not pass, the funds are withdrawn, along with all MSBA administrative support, after a 120-day period during which the Town can submit an appeal. This is what the MSBA says about the process:

In the event that a school district fails to approve funding for a proposed project within the 120-day deadline, by no later than 10 business days following the failed vote, the school district must submit to the MSBA a plan that: (1) presents the vote results, (2) explains the school district’s understanding of the reason(s) for the failed vote, and (3) sets forth the school district’s plan to remedy the failed vote and a suggested timeline for such a remedy. The MSBA will review the plan and determine whether it can continue to set aside MSBA funds for the proposed project. However, a failed local vote likely will result in the school district being required to submit a new Statement of Interest to the MSBA and await an invitation from the MSBA to enter the Eligibility Period phase of the MSBA’s process. http://www.massschoolbuildings.org

The last line is the one that should stick with voters. Despite the process in the current funding stage, a NO vote will most likely send Lexington back into the queue unless a solution can be designed, communicated to the public, and voted on in 4 months, which is highly unlikely, if not wholly impossible. There are no guarantees that Lexington will be approved at a later date. Priority is given to communities facing problems such as the overcrowding currently affecting LHS. Who knows what the future holds?

The neighboring community of Burlington applied for 13 consecutive years and was not approved. Ultimately, they chose to move forward on their own without MSBA support, and their debt-exclusion vote recently failed. It is important to note that an MSBA funding commitment results in a partnership with the Town that has many dimensions. Acceptance into the program comes with a rigorous set of MBSA expectations designed to ensure their investment is fit for purpose and meets both educational goals and industry-standard building and budgeting practices. Many consider these requirements onerous, but ultimately, the program has partnered with communities across the Commonwealth to produce schools that come in on budget and on time.

A YES vote would support the debt exclusion to build BLOOM and get a new high school by 2030, guarantee state funds, and ensure completion. The Town of Lexington would issue a school bond. Bonds are sold to institutional investors, mutual funds, and sometimes individuals through a financial underwriter, and the district repays the principal and interest over time using funds from property taxes.

A NO vote means that the Town will go back to the drawing board. It is unclear whether the design firm SMMA and the OPM (Owner’s Project Manager), Dore & Whittier, would continue to be involved and whether they would require additional funding to return to the design phase. Without a YES vote, the Town must continue with projects to current LHS infrastructure, estimated at up to $311 million. However, it will provide a pause to monitor enrollments caused by the MBTA Communities Act over time. Since multiple developments are in the pipeline, it is unclear how long it will take for reliable numbers to emerge. In this period, the Town could also proceed with another free-standing building to address overcrowding or purchase additional portable classrooms.

For voters who do not support BLOOM and want other options, a NO vote means Lexington will not proceed with the debt exclusion. As stated above, the Town must move forward on repairs, crowding mitigation, and/or reapplication to the MSBA.

TOWN MEETING VOTES YES TO BLOOM (but not unanimously)
On November 3, at a Special Town Meeting, over two-thirds of its members voted yes to Article 8, which would appropriate nearly $647,921,834, in addition to the nearly $11,825,000 already approved for a feasibility study. The result is that Lexington residents will vote on whether to allow a debt exclusion on December 8.

Here are the committees that approved Article 8 at the Special Town Meeting:

• School Committee
• Appropriations Committee
• Capital Expenditures Committee
• Permanent Building Committee
• Sustainability Lexington Committee

The Select Board voted 4-1 to approve the BLOOM design and financing vote.  11/3/25 Select Board Meeting

Select Board and School Building Committee member Joe Pato read a statement:

“We are here because the current facilities [are] overcrowded [and] have inadequate facilities and failing infrastructure to the extent that it interferes with classroom instruction, and that procuring parts for repair is difficult. The open campus presents safety issues. Students are forced to move through the unprotected, open quad between classes, which cannot be secured in the event of an emergency, and needlessly allows public access. Current spaces don’t meet modern educational needs. The Bloom project resolves these issues by creating a right-sized, safe, accessible, and flexible learning environment.”

Dissenting was Select Board member Doug Lucente. He also read a prepared statement that ended with:

“I’m voting no, not against the new high school, but for what I genuinely believe is right for the Town of Lexington, a project that needs and meets our educational goals, first and foremost, without losing sight of fiscal responsibility or community balance.”

To explain his dissenting vote, he cited a lack of discussion with residents. Lucente said that he hadn’t attended all of the community forums, and noted that a member of the Select Board served on the SBC as a liaison. He stated:

“Along the way, opportunities for creative thinking were closed off too soon. A clear example of this is the campus map. Several of us requested that it include the town-owned land across Worthen Road to evaluate the entire campus, including parking, fields, and traffic. But that request was ignored by leaving that part of the campus off the map. The process limited discussion before it even began. That’s not openness. That’s a missed opportunity.”

To understand that statement, it is necessary to dial way back to the beginning of the project when the architects considered town-owned parcel 41-120 (this was discussed in a video posted on the Town’s website). The triangle-shaped strip of land located across Worthen Road was evaluated for overflow parking (one possible use) and deemed inappropriate by the team early in the project, as Lucente notes. Two reasons were cited: wetlands and drainage, and a heritage issue. These are features of the entire area (including the current LHS building) stemming from the Vine Brook watershed. Adding more impermeable surfaces, such as a parking lot, would further complicate drainage. It was also noted that the area was flagged as an indigenous archaeological site. (see TMMA responses Part II)

Lucente agrees there is overcrowding at the high school, but speaking for himself in a post-vote phone interview, he said, “To fix that problem, there’s a couple solutions…One is to put in the building that would reduce some of that overcrowding. [Another is] in the mid-’80s, the high school was actually 10th, 11th and 12th grades.”

He cites graduating classes of 700-800. In the 2024-25 school year, the Massachusetts Department of Education enrollment data shows 592 students were enrolled in 12th grade at Lexington High School.

Lucente believes that decisions about design and location were made before the actual cost became clear. “I don’t know that we need the [Central] Administration building at the high school… Again, I think a lot of these decisions were made before we knew what the price tag was.”

BUILDING ON THE FIELDS-ARTICLE 97
Building on the fields has proved to be a significantly emotional and sentimental issue for residents. Understandably so. In investigating school building projects from Tisbury to Burlington, one constant stands out: people have problems with change. People form deep attachments to buildings and experiences from growing up. They can’t imagine anything better than what they had, and they don’t want things to change. Many members of the community have participated in and volunteered for Little League and other sports and have fond memories. People remember fundraising for new field lights and more stands, or for resurfacing. Nobody loves change. Except for the kids who are trying to learn for the 21st century in a building designed in the 1950s. A solution is needed to replace what is obviously (in its current state), outdated and failing by almost every metric: educational, engineering, and safety.

At the Special Town Meeting, Lexington’s Recreation and Community Programs Director, Melissa Battite, expressed support for the plan to relocate the fields. Battite said, “The new fields that will be built on the opposite side of the high school will actually be an improvement to what we have now. We will not lose any fields. They’ll be at a better quality, being built… brand-new.”

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In order to build on recreational fields, Massachusetts Article 97 requires that recreational land taken (for another purpose, such as school construction) be “swapped” in-kind. The land swap needed to locate the new construction on part of these fields gifted to the Town in a trust in 1914 and 1915 [by Lexington resident Augustus Scott, creating a charitable public trust], was reviewed as part of an Article 97 challenge mounted by Peter Kelley. Kelley is an LHS abutter and long-time supporter of local youth sports. Ultimately, his challenge was deemed inapplicable, as the trust had been reviewed in 1961 by the Trustees of Tufts College (the trust’s legal responsible party) when the Town sought to expand the high school, and the Trustees found it permissible to use part of the fields for that purpose. On the topic, Town Counsel Mina Mikarious stated, “We believe that the intent of that donation and that grant was not to create a public charitable trust, but to create a public park subject to conditions that the legislature could amend. It’s what the deed says.” The SBC anticipates no problems obtaining state approval. Town Meeting members approved Article 9 with more than the ⅔ vote needed to allow the land, and the matter will go to a future Article 97 vote in the state legislature.

Kelley dropped his opposition on those legal grounds but maintains his objections relative to the aesthetic appeal of the contiguous athletic “park.”
Lucente shares similar concerns, “We are sacrificing a valuable community asset, which is our athletic fields, to build on one of the most complex sites imaginable,” he said.

Ultimately, Town Meeting members approved Article 9 with more than the ⅔ votes needed to allow the land swap that permits BLOOM to be built where recreation fields currently exist and move the athletic fields, including the football field.

WETLAND FLOODING
Throughout this process, environmental issues have been a constant concern because the land is part of the Vine Brook watershed (as are many of the structures in that area). It is important to note that, at the beginning of this process, all town-owned open space was inventoried and evaluated starting in 2018. A total of 299 plots were listed, of which most were eliminated for size inadequacy. The remaining 15 sites were eliminated from consideration due to environmental or land-use restrictions. Due diligence was employed to find an alternative to the current site, but ultimately the process determined what the folks in 1953 also decided was best—the current location, despite its challenges (the peat and wetlands were also present in 1953), is best for the high school and its associated fields.

Lucente and others expressed environmental concerns about construction on wetlands and potential flooding. “This decision,” Lucente said, “creates a high-risk engineering challenge, introducing unavoidable costs and long-term maintenance risks. Just because something can be engineered doesn’t mean that it should be.”

The Center Field complex is built on a peat marsh. Peat is a poorly draining substrate. The objections to building on peat and poor drainage are not new and have obviously been considered and overcome in the past in building the current complex. As far back as 2010, the Community Preservation Committee allocated $875,173 for stormwater mitigation.

The new high school and new fields will be engineered with the most up-to-date solutions possible to mitigate flooding and will also include funds to improve soil composition to create more reliable conditions for building. The challenges of this site have been a constant for the Town, but drainage problems have been continuously improved, if not completely overcome.

Regarding the appropriateness of the site, Erin Prestileo, civil engineer at SMMA said, “It is not environmentally unsound to build where the building is proposed. I’d say that the soils in the fields are not suitable for typical foundation construction. That’s why we have proposed, and costs included, to improve those soils so that we can build safely and end [up with] a building that meets code and addresses all of the safety issues, [including] long term settlement.”
2025 from FEMA Maps (Federal Emergency Management Agency) identifying the parcel as a 100-year flood plain was top-of-mind for Steve Kaufman (Precinct 5), who asked about the Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system in the BLOOM designs, he said: “[The site] is very vulnerable to flooding, especially the ground source heat pump, which is under the ground in the flood zone, what mitigation is taking place for that? And were you not to get approval from FEMA for this modification, what implication would [that] have on the building design and the cost of the building?” (see TMMA responses Part 2)

Erin Prestileo, civil engineer with architectural firm SMMA, said, “What we’ve shown on our study is, while the updated FEMA mapping that was issued in July shows extensive floodplain without an elevation, we have studied and have shown that there’s actually minimal areas of flooding, we have flood elevations associated with those areas, and so we are able to locate the building and the necessary infrastructure away from those and actually, through the permitting process with the Conservation Commission, we’ll be moving those small areas away from the building and that necessary infrastructure.” Prestileo said she had hoped to get an answer from FEMA by now, but hasn’t received one due to the government shutdown.

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On the LHS Project website, there is a link to a flood study dated June 16, 2025, that acknowledges small areas on the site could flood. However, Dominic Rinaldi, PE, Senior Associate of the BSC Group, Inc., Boston, MA, that conducted the study, writes in the report’s conclusion, “As both of these areas are small, relatively shallow, and located at least 500-feet from the existing High School building, they should have minimal impact on any improvements proposed for the site.”

The same project website features a video that explains what the architectural firm SMMA would do if FEMA doesn’t approve the proposed reduction in the floodplain areaIt details how FEMA could “require changes to the base flood elevations that require raising the grade around the site” and notes that costs resulting from an unexpected change would be absorbed by the contingency funds already included in the $659.7 million budget.

OVERCROWDING
In addition to an aging building, overcrowding is often cited as a reason for building a new high school.

According to the Education Plan:

• Overcrowding also creates safety hazards, such as congestion in hallways
• Overcrowding also impacts on our [Lexington Public Schools’] ability to implement a new schedule that would enable LHS to meet the 990-hour time-on-learning requirement. A new schedule would require approximately 10% more space at LHS than does the current antiquated 8-period schedule, which negatively impacts time-on-learning.

Lexington High School Principal, Andrew Baker said: “It [BLOOM] also allows us to build classroom communities; you don’t need to go as far to get to your next class. The chemistry classrooms are close to the American literature classrooms, which juniors take… We’ve designed the school to have communities within the school and not four separate buildings with disciplines in them.”

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In answering Bob Avallone’s (Precinct 8) question about how BLOOM solves the transit time between classes issue, Principal Andrew Baker says, “[Currently], we’re a two-story structure across four buildings, every single student has to go down to the first floor and traverse through pretty much the same space to get where they’re going. There’s choke points in the school around thresholds, which are very narrow.” He said that currently the pass time is five minutes, and in the new building it would be three.

SECURITY
Since the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, there has been concern about active shooters at schools in the United States. Security has risen to the top in the high school design process. In terms of BLOOM’s design as a single building, Lexington High School Principal Andrew Baker said at the School Building Committee Community Meeting on October 14, 2025, “I know safety and security is going to be better in the next Lexington High School than it currently is. That’s going to give me peace of mind, and others peace of mind to do the learning that they need to do.”

Some in the community have expressed sentimentality about the “California campus” arrangement of the current layout, asserting that it more closely resembles a university and encourages movement throughout the day, etc. Lexington High School did not start as a disconnected campus. Buildings were added over the years (’53, ’57, and ’65), and through these additions, it evolved into a “California style” set of buildings with a beloved Quad at the center. However, this situation is challenging for modern educational practices, which are far more interdisciplinary, and the walk time creates challenges for both scheduling and security. The BLOOM design has attempted to mimic the Quad feeling with an open-air, but secure gathering spot on the third floor.

TAX IMPACT
Residents express reservations about the project’s cost and its impact on property taxes for the elderly and the middle class. Speakers expressed their feelings about the cost in different ways. For example, some felt that sacrificing the sunk cost of $11,825,000 for the feasibility study, the money, time, and effort already expended, and the state money, plus the cost of maintaining and improving failing buildings, is wasteful.

Others maintain that the buildings can be saved (or parts of them) and that the BLOOM design is unnecessarily extravagant.

Leticia Hom (Precinct 7) had this to say about what she hears from mayn in Lexington: “My parents got out of Lexington as soon as possible. We wish [they] could have stayed in Lexington, but taxes were too high. This bitterness is what we hear from many families once known as neighbors. ‘Revolving Door Lexington’ is in full swing. Constituents have expressed concerns about seniors and the middle class, including teachers, being pushed out. Many losing jobs due to federal research cuts and AI job replacement will also be forced out. Lexington is heading over a financial cliff that is unrecoverable.”

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Todd Burger (Precinct 9) said:
“The benefits merit this expenditure. The BLOOM design is a compact design, not the sprawling, disconnected, hard-to-maintain current set of buildings that comprise our high school…Finally, and importantly, do we really need to build something this nice? What some don’t appreciate about projects like this is that the bulk of the costs go into site preparation, foundations, utility costs, basic building materials, basic surfaces, and getting a roof over the building. The niceties typically make up less than 10% of the total cost…It’s going to serve students and faculty and families, not for five years or 10 years or 30 years, but likely for 50 or 60 years.”

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CONTROLLING PROJECT COSTS
By November 6, the School Building Committee posted a video on the LHS project website that addresses questions about the BLOOM design and how the Town of Lexington would control project costs. The video confirms that $659.7 million is the cap for the project, so any changes to that cost would require Town Meeting approval and a new debt exclusion vote. The video addresses the anticipated cost management by the Town of Lexington and the Massachusetts School Building Authority, and how to handle changes to the project due to unexpected issues.

TAX CALCULATOR
Lexington homeowners can use the Tax Calculator on the LHS project website to see how much their property taxes would increase over time to pay for the new high school. The average home assessment sample listed on the Calculator was $1,400,000. Some voice concern for residents whose home values have risen but who are on fixed incomes; what impact would that have on them? For example, a home assessed at $700,000 would see a $22 increase in real estate taxes in FY2027. Then, the real estate tax increase rises annually, reaching a peak in FY2036 of $912 for that homeowner. The following year, it begins to descend gradually. That homeowner would pay a total of $5,702 additional real estate taxes from FY2027-FY2037.

IF LEXINGTON SAYS NO
What happens if the debt exclusion doesn’t pass? The School Building Committee (SBC) and resident groups have said there is a “cost to doing nothing.” The cost to upgrade the existing high school campus is estimated at $311 million.

To emphasize how HVAC impacts learning, a student on the SBC, Luke Yung, said, “Air conditioning and heating systems in our school are incredibly loud when taking a course such as a world language course, or an English course. It’s often difficult to hear teachers and staff. This means that while reading books, it can be difficult to understand the content and to understand what we’re supposed to be learning.”

He added, “This is an incredibly big problem and prevents students from being able to learn effectively. This is also reflected in the problems in math and science buildings. In the science building, if you’re in a lab and you cannot hear teacher instructions during a lab, it could prove dangerous. If you’re doing a lab that involves boiling water or other dangerous substances, then that could be a catastrophe. In conclusion, overheating the heating systems and cooling systems can create a world in which student learning and safety is inhibited.”

In terms of energy efficiency, BLOOM’s design is 30% net-positive, with solar panels, a hybrid HVAC system with ground and air-source heat pumps, and a battery backup for several hours of essential functions. The building would use the generated energy to reduce the amount of electricity the Town has to buy.

At the November 3 Special Town Meeting, resident Jamie Katz said , “I know that all of the schools I attended, except for the high school, have long been put out of service of the public school system. But I’m an old guy, so it’s a reasonable question to ask, ‘Why would I support a school that we’ll never use?’ Simple. I believe that this high school, this coming high school, will help not only the students, but it’s going to help the community.”

Next stop: Lexington residents will have the final say on December 8.

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To watch the 11/3/2025 Select Board meeting and the 11/3/2025 go to the On Demand Menu at Lex Media

To watch the Video Explainers and to review materials from the project, go to the LHS Building project website