Watching two school building projects unfold virtually side by side in time and space has provided a unique window into what happens when environmental and educational activism collide at the local level.

On one side of Hemlock Road, we have the planned new Northeast Metro Tech. The current NEMT regional vocational high school was constructed in 1968, and has not had any significant renovations, additions or improvements since then.

On the other side of Hemlock Road is the site of a proposed new Wakefield High School. It would be constructed on the site of the Shaun F. Beasley Track and Field and would replace the existing high school built in 1960.

The NEMT project timeline is slightly ahead of the Wakefield High School project, which still must go to a Special Election on March 11.

In 2017, the Massachusetts School Building Authority accepted the Northeast Metro Tech Building Project into its process with the result that the MSBA will reimburse the school for a significant percentage of the total project costs. The remaining costs will be paid by the 12 cities and towns in the regional school district — mortgaged over a 30-year period.

But after years of planning, open public meetings and a vote of all 12 member communities approving the new Northeast Metro Tech plan, a group was suddenly formed to oppose the vocational school project.

Actually, they claim that they support building a new Voke school, but they somehow missed the fact that it was going to be built in the nearby woods owned by the school district. This wooded and rocky site abuts and blends into the massive Breakheart Reservation, but to the anti-Voke activists, this “forested hilltop” site is second only to the Amazon Rain Forest in its environmental significance.

Environmental activists and educational activists are usually one and the same. After all, climate change ranks second only to social justice in the Canon of Public Education. But now, we’re seeing division in the ranks as well as conflicted individual loyalties. Many of those who are working overtime to derail the NEMT project because it will be built on a “wildlife habitat,” enthusiastically support the proposed Wakefield High School project, which would be built on a memorial site sacred to the family, friends and classmates of the late Shaun F. Beasley.

The local “Save the Forest” people have no problem with spending $274 million to build a new Wakefield High School, which their own children and their neighbors’ children will have the privilege of attending.

But they’re quite willing to jeopardize another school project that would serve less privileged students, many of whom come from poor and minority neighborhoods in cities like Chelsea, Woburn, Malden and Revere.

In fairness, the students who would attend a new Wakefield High School will be learning crucial life skills like diversity, equity and inclusion. On the other hand, many of the Northeast Metro Tech kids aren’t even going on to college! Can you even imagine?

Regarding the new Wakefield Memorial High School plan, how many times have we been told that the specific plan before us – and only that plan – will serve the town’s educational needs. To go back to the drawing board at this point, we’ve been told over and over, would mean getting back in line for MSBA funding, a process that would take years.

And yet, that is precisely what the forest activists are asking the Voke to do. NEMT has a Project Funding Agreement in place with MSBA based on the specific plan that was approved by the voters in the district. But the Tree People want to place the entire project in jeopardy by changing the site of the new school.

It’s fun to watch the activists, who believe they know more than anyone about every subject from environmentalism to the law, take on people they think are beneath them. But when their water heater breaks or their pipes freeze, they’ll be desperately looking for a vocational school grad to bail them out.

Now, the activists have turned to local boards like the Conservation Commission in an effort to block the Voke project. At a recent meeting, one woman couldn’t understand why the ConCom didn’t simply refuse to consider the project based on the site.

When they finish building these new schools, I really hope they bring back civics education.
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[This column originally appeared in the March 2, 2023 Wakefield Daily Item.]