On May 28th, a group of Runkle teachers (Marian Voros, Deanne Dixon, Danielle Halwick and Teresa Gallo-Toth) and parents (Mike Noble and Rosemary McElroy) paid a visit to the Chenery Middle School in Belmont. The Chenery School was designed by the same architect as is working on the Runkle renovation, Design Partnership of Cambridge. It is of similar size to the proposed courtyard shown in the B1 drawing. We saw it on an overcast, drizzly day and were pleasantly surprised that, though it is surrounded on 4 sides by three stories of building mass, it was very bright and open. See for yourself:
The Chenery School construction project only assumed basic improvements to the courtyard space. Specifically, basic drainage, the brick pathways shown in the photographs, and the four green metal benches. (In an amusing, but alarming anecdote, our tour guide told us that the original drainage in the courtyard had been so inadequate that, after a heavy rain, they were able to, and did, race boats in the resulting large, deep puddles.) All other improvements have been the result of a 100% volunteer partnership between the Chenery School community and the Mass Audubon Habitat Intergenerational Program (http://www NULL.massaudubon NULL.org/printnews NULL.php?id=307) (HIP). No money from the town or district has been used to make the improvements to the courtyard.
