For sound fiscal management and opportunity cost protection, the historic Island-wide referendum on the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School addition/renovation project is the most responsible way to address our Island’s educational needs. Public support for this project will pay taxpayer dividends for years to come — in fact, for generations.
When the school was built, there were only three television channels and Gunsmoke was the number-one program. From the standpoint of safeguarding the Vineyard’s future and brightening those of rising generations of schoolchildren, voting in favor of the project on Tuesday, June 2 is a no-brainer.
The MVRHS facility opened in 1959, meaning that the grandchildren of its first alumni have long since graduated, generations walking the same halls and studying in the same classrooms. But the school’s curriculum and educational needs have long since outgrown the current plant, with special education along with career and technical education (CTE) programs badly underserved. Classrooms have fallen below state standards, and students’ health is jeopardized by mold and poor indoor air quality.
Not greenlighting an improved and expanded facility would mean failing our students.
The June 2 ballot asks voters to approve a $333.5 million renovation and expansion project, with the state covering roughly $77 million of that through the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA). In addition to the estimated $256 million cost to property owners, debt service spread over three decades would mean another roughly $6 million annualized.
And therein lies the urgency. Construction costs across all sectors have spiked for years, the current proposal has been vetted for years, and forestalling the project’s start would force years of additional delays and additional taxpayer burdens — all while our students fall further behind in an unhealthy learning environment.
Why the high cost? It is, after all, not a pie-in-the-sky project. While there will be demolition and construction, the MVRHS proposal does not represent a “Taj Mahal” project in the manner that some Massachusetts communities have approved. It is, in fact, a sound and prudent project that responsibly steers tax dollars where they can be most shrewdly spent. The hard facts are that construction on the Island is, by nature, more expensive, an unavoidable reality that should not result in depriving our community of an improved, modern campus.
Project planners considered a basic code upgrade, but that alone would not have qualified for support from the MSBA. The school needs new security infrastructure, new plumbing, its fire protection system upgraded, mold removal, a cooling system, a new heating system, asbestos remediation. The building code project alone would have cost Island taxpayers roughly 80 per cent of what the proposal on the ballot would, without state funding participation.
And those fixes would merely constitute no treading infrastructural water, leaving the current structure with significant deficiencies and missing the chance to deliver milestone improvements to a facility that is used by not just students but many other residents as well. From ping-pong to ESL programs, cribbage to the performing arts, MVRHS is the most heavily trafficked public building on the Island, and its betterment would benefit the entire population.
Additionally, while mustering the political will to put the current proposal on a path to success has proved understandably arduous and time-consuming, going back to the drawing board with no guarantee of state participation — all while construction costs continue their escalation — would be disastrous.
We believe our young people, and our Island, deserve better.
Instead, on June 2, voters have the chance to breathe new life into an historic building, imbuing MVRHS and general Island life with new spirit and leaving the Vineyard better than the way we found it. The proposal preserves the gym, Performing Arts Center and connecting spaces, while taking down the original edifice and an addition tacked on during the 1980s. The current parking lot would become the home of a new academic building, the centerpiece of the new MVRHS.
State-of-the-art classrooms, library, labs and art spaces, a cafeteria, home to the school’s renowned CTE curriculum and a courtyard accessible through a new cafeteria will in total consume a contracted footprint from the current layout. In the next phase, there will be renovations to the gym, arts, music and performing arts spaces.
The entire project is charted for 36 months, and would represent the most significant public building improvement on the Vineyard in recent memory.
But that timeline can’t start unless the Island’s voters go to the polls on Tuesday, June 2, and not just exercise common sense and sound fiscal practice, but wield their civic prerogative to push our community forward and ring the bell to signify the commencement of a brighter future.
Michael Watts lives in Tisbury. He is the chair the MVRHS ballot committee.
This article appears in May 29, 2026.