To the editor:
I read with interest the stories on the options for Fuller.
The quasi-public estate company, MassDevelopment, has done some good thinking about how the city might make better use of the Fuller School building and those recommendations have now gone to the City Council and School Committee.
I am baffled, however, with why making use of the space as a school has been left off the list.
There is a need to upgrade the facilities for students who live in the West Parish area; clearly, West Parish Elementary School is crowded and needs an upgrade.
Fuller, however, is a building that is designed as a school, not an elementary school, but a school nevertheless. The city owns the building and uses part of it for school district administrative functions already.
I do understand that Fuller is a bit farther to go for families who are used to the location of West Parish. But, shouldn't converting part of Fuller to an elementary school at least be on the list that MassDevelopment submitted, and that we are considering?
It is clearly more cost-effective in difficult economic times and more environmentally friendly to reuse an existing school than to convert it to a use which, as yet, has no guarantee of success — and then build a new school not so far away.
NEIL GLICKSTEIN
Gloucester
