The development of the new Josiah Quincy Upper School building is on schedule. The construction of the facility on Washington Street will mark a milestone for the school’s community, as students and teachers have been in temporary spaces, which did not accommodate the school’s growing needs, for a long time. While some community members have expressed concerns about the usage of the site and how building will impact the environment, they have also stated that it is important for students to have the state-of-the-art facilities that they deserve.
“We are losing the middle school campus, the modular buildings at 900 Washington Street,” said head of Josiah Quincy Upper School Richard Chang. “Those buildings are slated to be demolished this month. Actually, the demolition process has begun.” He added, “The other part, which is more urgent right now, is the development of the swing space, as our students need to be consolidated in one building. Instead of having two campuses, we’ll just have the one, on Arlington Street. We have to have ten10 additional classrooms, so this summer, the team has been managing a construction crew to put in the ten10 classrooms and spaces that would enable us to accommodate all of the students, come fall, when school starts.”
Construction is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2024. Until this year, the Washington Street campus has been for grades six and seven, while the Arlington Street campus has been for grades eight to 12. The sixth and seventh grade students will be moving into the swing space. This fall, students will be returning for in person learning and will have to abide by some regulations, according tosaid Chang.
“At a minimum, all students and staff have to be masked while inside buildings,” said Chang. “I think there’s an open question about what role will schools will play in the vaccination of children. My students are at least 12 years old, so they’re eligible for vaccination. My rough estimate is that about 60% of my students are currently already vaccinated. … We a’re looking into the possibility that we could partner with Tufts Medical Center.” He added, “We would like to explore having our kids just be walked over to Tufts to get vaccinated, with family permission. We’re looking at ways to encourage students to be vaccinated. How that’s going to happen is still in discussion. The other question is whether we will continue with virtual teaching via Zoom. That’s really an open question. As of now, the plan is for all students to come back in person. Yet anecdotally, I am hearing that there are some families who are still feeling uncomfortable sending their kids into school buildings.”
In the planning for the creation of the new building, the project’s team endeavored to involve community input. Rebecca Lee, a partner at the law firm Mintz and a Chinatown resident of 17 years, said that she felt the team made a “good faith effort” to include community members in conversations, but that the ability of community members to shape design was limited. Students will be getting the facilities that they need, but Lee expressed concern about some aspects of the project.
“The concerns that I have related to the public realm [are] the width of the sidewalks around the building, to allow for free circulation of students and neighborhood residents, [and] the height and bulk of the building. It occupies practically its entire site area,” said Lee. “I was also concerned about the proposed placement of mechanical equipment closest to the Oak Terrace building at 888 Washington Street and particularly noise attenuation. Ambient noise in the neighborhood is already extremely high. Chinatown is a very heavy, traffic congested neighborhood, and it’s important that this new public facility meets all of the energy conservation and best management practices for green technology, including noise attenuation. It’s hard to evaluate how good the City has done in its design until it i’s actually constructed.”
Angie Liou, executive director of the Asian Community Development Corporation, acknowledged that the school truly needed a new building, but that the site that was chosen was a controversial pick.
“Parcel A, for at least two decades, was actually designated for affordable housing for Chinatown,” said Liou. “This project started under the Walsh administration, and so when the community finally learned that the City was going to go ahead and put a school building there, we were feeling very torn. I understand that the Upper School has long needed a more permanent and better home, because the current situation of it being divided into those two buildings that are three or four blocks away is untenable. But the fact that this was done at the expense of affordable housing, it just felt like Chinatown as a community was forced to make a choice between the two.”
Chang said that he hopes that in the face of gentrification, the school will continue to be able to support immigrant families.
“What’s the school system is like—that i’s probably the strongest determinant of whether a community is considered desirable, with respect to home purchases and so on, where they want to raise their families,” said Chang. “The school typically is the anchor. But particularly in Chinatown, one of the main concerns is gentrification. The Quincy schools have always been serving our immigrant population.” He added, “The concern about gentrification is that our immigrant communities will be pushed out over time. So for this reason, I have been very much invested and collaborating with the leaders in affordable housing development. … The school exists in partnership with other important institutions, in order to make Chinatown a vibrant, residential community.”
