A new North High: To be, or not to be?

North Attleboro voters will be asked in June to replace their current high school.

The hottest debate in the area is definitely over whether North Attleboro's electorate will vote in early June to build a new, $290 million high school off Landry Avenue, replacing the one that was built in the mid-1970s to finally replace what's now called the Community School, which is in the middle of town and adjacent to Community Field.

As I am no longer a North Attleboro resident -- and no, I don't use the overly pretentious spelling that employs the colonial-era "-ugh" at the end -- I really shouldn't tell people that pay taxes in that community how to vote. But because I was a resident from 1992 through 2002, and because I've spent practically all of my life living in this area and covering the athletic teams of 11 local high schools including their beloved Red Rocketeers, I think I have some measure of understanding of the issues on the table.

North Attleboro, which separated from big brother Attleboro (which dropped the -ugh from its name in 1914) in 1887, is the second-largest community in the circulation area of my former newspaper, The Sun Chronicle -- which, itself, was the product of the merger of two daily newspapers, the Attleboro Sun and the North Attleboro Chronicle, in 1971. I worked for both. But while North Attleboro has roughly 5,000-6,000 more residents than my bordering hometown of Mansfield, it barely has more than a few hundred more students in the high school.

Mansfield has always been a little more proactive about building new high schools than North (which is what the residents prefer to call it). North built the Community School in 1919, and let it serve the high school students of the town until the new school was finished in 1973. Mansfield, meanwhile, built what's now the town hall as MHS not long after North's, replaced it in 1954 with what's now the Qualters Middle School and then replaced that with the current MHS building in 1970.

Both current high school buildings have been augmented by temporary classrooms over the years, mostly to deal with a sudden uptick in student population in the 2000s. But that has subsided in both communities -- one of the reasons why the proposed NAHS replacement is supposed to house only 1,050 students upon completion.

In Mansfield, no one is talking about replacing the 55-year-old high school -- probably because it has been maintained well over its lifetime, as my property taxes can attest. North residents, however, have seemingly taken great pride in keeping their tax rate artificially low by, as it has been explained to me, cutting corners on maintenance and upkeep of all of the school buildings in town. 

Admittedly, I don't get to see every inch of either school in my ongoing quest to cover high school sports in the towns. Most of what I see are the athletic facilities. This past year, my town raised quite a bit of cash through taxation to renovate the football field, buy a video scoreboard, put down a new floor in the high school gym and meet a few accompanying needs without even a peep of protest. Paying for education is something Mansfield voters tend to do, although they drew a line recently by refusing to pass an override of Proposition 2½, the state legislation that limits annual municipal tax increases to 2½ percent of the previous budget.

North recently spent nearly $5 million for a full reconstruction of its on-site football stadium, lending some to whine about how there are those in town that will pay for anything related to football and not for academics. That can be debated until the cows come home, but North was forced into the project when all of the stands were condemned, and state and federal regulations required construction of additional facilities (including bathrooms) that were compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Also, it should be noted that plenty of teams of several different sports use Beaupre Field.

The much-debated Beaupre Field scoreboard.

The new Beaupre Field is an excellent facility. Among the improvements were a $200,000 scoreboard that projects video replays, just like Mansfield's, which raised the hackles of some of the so-called taxpayer watchdogs in town. School officials countered with three points of information -- first, the old scoreboard was falling apart and new parts were not available; second, the new one could be turned into a revenue stream by selling advertising time to local businesses; and third, by swinging a deal for two new scoreboards for the existing gymnasium that can be mounted in a new gym once it is built.

The bottom line, however, is that a new school would be far more likely to meet the educational needs of the next generation of NAHS students and beyond than a costly renovation of the old school. Younger residents seem to be in favor of it. But there remains the old guard of those that wave their walking sticks in the air and shout that they didn't need all these fancy modern doo-dads to get an education.

I've gotten the distinct feeling that many of those that have made their objections loudly public either didn't graduate from the current NAHS, or haven't set foot inside it since their graduation. And there's this one chap, a constant letter-writer to The Sun Chronicle, who proudly proclaims in his missives that he is a tireless advocate for taxpayer rights. He has also claimed that all of the media organizations covering the town, both The Sun Chronicle and North Attleborough Community Television (Full disclosure: I now work at the latter on a part-time basis), have a liberal bias and are deliberately misrepresenting the facts in an attempt to push their evil liberal Democrat agenda upon the good, Trump-loving conservative voters in town. 

The fact is that North voted to support presidential candidates Hillary Clinton in 2016 (51.2 percent), Joe Biden in 2020 (58 pct.) and Kamala Harris in 2024 (52.4 pct.). The margins may have been a little closer than in other local towns, but facts are facts. The notion that North is some sort of Trump stronghold is nonsense.

Besides, I've always felt that those who constantly tout their allegedly noble intentions are overstating their importance.

The new Tri-County is under construction.

I can't blame North voters for looking out for their wallets -- especially older ones that may not have the resources to cope with constant tax increases. But it could also be argued that the town has artificially kept its tax rate low for many years. North also got a double whammy recently in having to fund the largest share of the new Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School in Franklin because it sends the largest share of students to the school that opened in 1977. Like many other communities, North stopped offering vocational education in its own high school once a modern vocational school opened nearby -- but Tri-County's success at its mission eventually caused it to outgrow its facility and create the need for replacement.

The new Tri-County has a $286 million price tag, and North voters approved their share by a large margin. But now there are concerns that Trump's constant threats of tariffs to overseas suppliers of building materials are going to result in huge cost overruns -- which the taxpayers of neighboring towns will have to pay.

There's one hard truth to be stated here. A new North Attleboro High will not be getting any cheaper. The town will be getting a pretty good chunk of change back from the state if it proceeds with the project now, but there are no guarantees of future lucrative reimbursements. And nothing seems to be getting cheaper anywhere -- except, maybe, within the addled confines of Donald Trump's failing brain.

As I said at the start, I can't tell anyone in North how to vote. I know what I'd do, which would be to vote for the new school, because I believe that part of the responsibility of living in a community is to look beyond my own selfish concerns and do what's best for the community as a whole. If that means paying more taxes for a community need, then so be it.

Perhaps that one fellow that touts his undying vigilance over North Attleboro's bottom line should come to realize that North will still exist once he is gone. Decisions of this sort are made with the future in mind -- even if it's not likely to be a future he will live to see.

For more information about the project prior to the June 3 vote, check out the fact sheet at this website: MSBA High School Building Project Updates | North Attleborough Public Schools.

MARK FARINELLA wrote for The Sun Chronicle in Attleboro for 42 years until his retirement in 2018. He had the distinct privilege of being among the first classes of Mansfield students to enter the Everett W. Robinson Elementary School in 1966 and Mansfield High School in 1970.