SEEM Collaborative Votes to Lease Melrose's Beebe School

SEEM Collaborative directors voted this morning to lease the Beebe School in Melrose, displacing the , which signed a one-year lease for the Beebe with Melrose Public Schools last spring.

A special education collaborative including Melrose and nine other communities, SEEM already leases the former Ripley School in Melrose, where the collaborative runs its . The SEEM Collaborative's lease at 25 William Street in Stoneham, where it runs a Grades 5-8 middle school and Campus Academy program, ends this summer. The collaborative wants to be in the new space by Aug. 1.

The SEEM directors considered lease proposals from three communities: Melrose; Woburn, for the Clapp School just last night; and Stoneham at the North and East Schools.

The SEEM board spent about half an hour reviewing the three proposals. Among the topics: Melrose and Stoneham would allow students from pre-kindergarten through grade 12 in the leased space; Woburn, only through grade eight. A high school SEEM program in Wakefield might, at some time, need to be moved if its enrollment drops, SEEM Collaborative Executive Director Catherine Lawson said. With the grade restriction at the Clapp School, they could not move there.

All the Melrose space is handicapped accessible; parts of Woburn and Stoneham space are not.

The classroom size at the Clapp School is ideal; the Beebe classrooms, too big. Melrose offered the collaborative a credit to modify space there. That credit was reflected in the rental figures, according to the discussion.

The board members who represent the three communities that submitted lease proposals left the room during the lease discussion and vote. The trio are Melrose Superintendent Joe Casey; Woburn Superintendent Mark Donovan; and Stoneham Superintendent Dr. Les Olson.

Casey could not be immediately reached on Wednesday morning for comment.

Mayor Rob Dolan said on Wednesday that "no lease has been signed" yet. He added that the city realizes cost-savings through its participation in the SEEM Collaborative, cutting back on out-of-district costs for students with particular special needs that can't be met in district.

"If we have an opportunity to rent for a long-term lease at fair market value of the building; that is in line with the educational goals of the districts; that is a regionalized approach, which is the focus of all governments right now; that makes sense to me and makes sense for taxpayers," Dolan said.

The cost to lease space at the Beebe School for three years would be $696,000: $555,000 in rent plus an estimated $141,000 for electricity and gas, according to figures reviewed by the SEEM directors.

The cost to lease the Clapp School, the collaborative calculated, would have been a total of $718,000 for three years: $529,000 in rent plus an estimated $189,000 for electricity and gas.

Stoneham submitted a proposal for the space at two schools in Stoneham, where the collaborative currently operates programs, for only one year. It was significantly higher than the Woburn and Melrose proposals. The collaborative was looking for a five-year lease. The Woburn proposal included three years and two additional one-year lease extensions.

Generally, when SEEM leases space, the collaborative pays for water and sewer separately from the lease, sometimes at the commercial rate, Clint Rowe, the collaborative’s director of finance and operations, told Melrose Patch after the meeting. In Melrose, SEEM has negotiated a lower-than-commercial rate, Lawson said.

The for a portion of the Beebe School this school year for $25,000 and also for providing 25 hours of professional development for Melrose teachers. The new grassroots private school for gifted and talented students, which is in its inaugural year, currently has 32 students in kindergarten through sixth grade.

According to a January news release, Anova is planning on expanding its program to include middle school children. The school will grow at a pace to accommodate current sixth graders, according to founder Courtney Dickinson. She added that classrooms at Anova have only 14 students per room.

Melrose Patch Editor Daniel DeMaina contributed to this report.