Architectural Innovations, the consulting firm that prepared the Phase 1 report, sent a letter to the district offering to complete a more comprehensive demographic and feasibility study free of charge. The firm presented their initial findings to the district in August 2011.
The letter states:
“We felt then, as we do now, that without evaluating the District as a ‘whole’ the study would not provide the level of information necessary for the Board of School Directors to make appropriate decisions regarding School District facilities.”
This is a huge development for the hundreds of residents that have been urging the administration to do more due diligence.
You can read the entire letter by reading below or clicking here.
The question now is: What will the district do with this offer? Come to the school board meeting at 7pm on Wednesday, February 20th and encourage the board to take a step back and gather more evidence before moving forward with a measure as drastic as closing a building.
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save NA schools 
This leads me to ask why wasn’t Mr Gaertner at the Pulic Hearing on January 30th? This letter was more than a week before the Public Hearing. Was he afraid there actually was an answer he could provide?!
This drives me to ask about the ethics of our Administration!
I just wanted to take a moment to respond to Superintendent Gualtieri’s comments that only one hundred residents turned out for the meeting last week, and that his interpretation of that is most residents support the closing and redistricting. Please understand that we have the luxury of living in this community by choice. Most people have double incomes to AFFORD to live here. My husband and I “tag-team”. He works days, I work nights. Not everyone with pre-school and elementary school kids can come home from work, cook dinner, do homework, bath kids, get a babysitter, and go to a meeting at 7:00 and stay till 2:20 AM. It seems that our superintendent does not fully understand the situation at hand in more ways than we think.
I was happy to see this letter and offer from Architectural Innovations …. as Lynn pointed out above, I didn’t even notice the DATE. Why would this not have been brought to anybody’s attention at THE HEARING??? I know I am not the only one alarmed by the depth of deceit from our elected school board and the NA administration — Wow — I’m curious to know what they will decide to do next, but based on past experience, won’t be surprised if they turn down this offer, just as they’ve turned down the repeated plea for community involvement.
I believe the School Board & Administration are obligated to accept this (no fee) offer from Architectural Innovations, just as they accepted the no fee offer from Thomas & Williamson. Isn’t “seeking more data” at the heart of what we are asking? There just is NOT conclusive data to support the Administrations proposal to close a school…any school.
This definitely should be put as part of the public hearing records!
I sent my written comments to the Board today and included this letter. I also received a confirmation from Mrs. Ryan that it will be included in the Public Record.
I did reference the date of the letter and my disappointment that it was not introduced at the Public Hearing.
If I am not mistaken, I thought either Mr. Pagone or Mr. Jacobs did indeed enter a letter from this firm into the record at the Public Hearing. It was a very late night, however, so I may have dreamt it.
Slightly off topic…(if you haven’t already)…please go to Save NA Schools facebook page. There are people posting quick links to (recent) past dismal performances of our current Superintendent. My question: Who vetted this guy?? Didn’t we elect our School Board to be good stewards of our district? Definition of stewardship: “the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.” I have, so far, been unable to find a positive remark or article about Gualtieri.