McAuliffe Charter School Campus Approved by Framingham Planning Board

The Framingham Planning Board approved the new proposed campus for the Christa McAuliffe Regional Charter Public School Thursday night.

The charter school, presently housed at the former St. Stephen's elementary school in downtown Framingham, plans to move to a new campus at an office park at 135-139 Newbury St. for the 2014-15 school year.

McAuliffe purchased the office park property for $4.95 million in 2013, with the plan to more its 396 middle school students to its new location in fall 2014. 

Executive director Kristin Harrison said Thursday night the project is still on track to open at its new campus this fall. She said the school is ready to bid for a general contractor to do the necessary renovations.

The school, which accepts students from seven communities in addition to Framingham via an annual lottery, is in its 12th year. More than two-thirds of the school's current student body is from Framingham.

The charter school held its lottery for the class of 2017 last night, March 6. There were 283 applicants for 144 slots. It was the largest applicant pool for the school's largest class ever.

The school has submitted a site plan review before the Planning Board, under the Dover amendment. That process allows educational institutions to go through the planning and zoning process, with limited zoning restrictions.

In January, the school held a meeting for the community in its new neighborhood. Residents expressed concerns about traffic and safety, due to the lack of sidewalks near the new campus.

Robert Michaud, a traffic consultant hired by McAuliffe, said the school would add four to eight buses to the neighborhood and between 200-250 cars via staff and parents. School leadership said many parents carpool, so not every student on a bus means an additional car.

"One more car is one more than we need," said Newbury Street resident Shari Krasnoo back in January at the community meeting.

Michaud, a Framingham resident, said he understood the neighborhood's concerns but buses would enter the campus off Burr Street and a majority of parents and staff would also enter the proposed new campus off Burr Street as opposed to Newbury Street.

Jim Hanrahan, an attorney working for McAuliffe on the project, said the school's goal is not to fix existing traffic issues, but to do its best not to add problems.

The McAuliffe campus will not be entirely comprised of students, as a couple of tenants in one of the other building in the office park asked to complete their lease. Once the lease ends, the goal is to have the entire campus just for the regional public charter school.

The campus consists of three buildings. Civil engineer David Kelly said little construction is proposed for the campus. A second driveway is planned and what he described as the only eye sore on the site, the warehouse, will be remodeled into the school's new Adventure Center. The other major outside change would be an entry tower, designed to tie into the school's curriculum on bridges.

The present buildings in the office park, said Kelly, will need to be reconfigured inside for classrooms, but on the outside only cosmetic changes, including adding canopies and awnings to protect students and adding earth tone colors are planned.

Editor's Note: My daughter is a student at the McAuliffe Charter School.