The new high and its grounds

A great deal of money has been spent to complete the new high school project – and a great deal has been spent to properly landscape the property.
After all, this is a near to $140 million investment in the city’s future that was made by the city and its tax payers, and so, it would be folly to have gone all this way to leave the high school looking bare and incomplete by failing to go the last yard with the landscaping.
At Monday evening’s School Committee meeting, Representative Steven Smith castigated School Superintendent Fred Foresteire for spending money on landscaping the high school when the money would have been much better spent paying for more teachers.
This is not, on its face, bad reasoning. However, the money spent on landscaping could not be spent on teachers and the case could be made that the city would be in violation of its lending agreements if the high school, in its entirety, was not completed exactly as it should be.
Mr. Foresteire fended off Smith’s rather angry complaint.
Mr. Smith needs to be reminded that he does not need to be abrasive, aggressive and insulting to the superintendent in order to make his points to the School Committee.
In this instance, Mr. Foresteire and the School Committee have done the right thing – and every pupil coming onto the new high school property every morning are the beneficiaries of one of the most beautiful new high schools in the state.
This is the way it should be for all our school children – sparkling new facilities and lovely grounds.
Everett children have a right to lovely grounds instead of chain link fencing and paving.
We compliment the School Committee and Mr. Foresteire for their efforts to remain true to a higher aesthetic standard.
Everett isn’t Marblehead or Swampscott – but it sure looks that way around our new schools – and the city and our public school students are better and prouder for it.