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Concord’s school board is at a crossroads. An election day vote threw plans to build a new middle school into the ringer, and the board now faces a variety of options about what to do next. None have officially been ruled out, but their once-fervent plan for a new school in East Concord has faded. Recent discussions largely circled around either an immediate decision to redirect plans to the South End or to hold a referendum of some kind. Potential paths outlined by the board include: Continuing with plans to build at Broken Ground or immediately reversing course and creating designs to rebuild at Rundlett. They could hold a special election to ask the voters to choose a location or wait until city elections next November to ask voters to choose a location. They could renovate the current school or renovate the current school and also build a second, smaller middle school at Broken Ground. On the more extreme end, they could engage with Merrimack Valley about a “one city, one school district” model – or drop the project entirely. The board voted last December, almost a year to the day before Wednesday’s meeting, to locate its new middle school in East Concord rather than rebuild it at its current location in the south end. On election day, roughly two-thirds of voters approved a change to the district charter that now requires the board to pass any relocation of a school in a referendum vote, throwing its plans to replace the current middle school, several years in the making, into uncertainty. The board is awaiting more information about costs and timelines for each path before it proceeds. While no action was taken at a special meeting Wednesday, the meeting laid bare how disagreement over the location question, after a year of contention, has soured into resentment on all sides. “I don’t really like going out in public anymore because of this,” said Sarah Robinson, a board member from East Concord. “We need a damn school, already. And this dragging out is obnoxious, and has been contentious for no reason; it has been really unprofessional and disappointing from so many individuals. I’m done dealing with it.” According to the board’s legal counsel, they don’t. Because the relocation decision had already been made prior to the new rule going into effect, it cannot be retroactively undone, according to Dean Eggert, the school board’s legal counsel. His analysis determined that the board could move forward with building a new school at Broken Ground as planned on solid legal footing. Article continues after... Cross|Word Flipart Typeshift SpellTower Really Bad Chess “Amendment number one applies to all decisions to relocate schools made after June 30 of 2025. It does not apply retroactively to rescind the December 6, 2023 vote,” Eggert said. However, he added, “We’re providing you with a legal opinion... I don’t provide you with business advice. I don’t provide you with political advice.” Taking that path — charging ahead as planned — wasn’t officially voted down. But board discussion indicated most members see it as unwise — not only because they would seem to flout voters’ expressed wishes but also because they would likely land in court. “Although I agree with his analysis of the retroactivity, I respect the vote I saw in November,” Board President Pamela Walsh said. “I think I would work personally from options coming out of that.” Walsh’s comment aligned with ones she made at a candidate forum in October. Then running for re-election, she pledged to “honor” the amendments if they passed. But, Wednesday night, the board didn’t reach a consensus on what honoring the vote really means. On one hand, the amendments were written and advocated for by people who want a rebuild at Rundlett. They reiterated these thoughts, and opposition to the Broken Ground site, during public comment. “Hopefully you got the message,” Debra Samaha said during public testimony. “Now, the public expects you to tell your legal counsel that you want to remain at Rundlett and not litigate or further delay... Now, the public expects you to take your thumb off the scale and do what you should have done years ago.” At the same time, others countered, that may not be why all voters backed the rule change. “Yes, the amendments passed with a supermajority. But they themselves were not a direct referendum on where the school should be placed. I know the Concerned Citizens folks want to paint it as a direct referendum, but that’s not what it was,” said Alex Streeter, a South End resident. Holding an election, he continued, “is the best way to find out what the constituents actually want.” Streeter cited the findings of a Monitor survey done in October in which respondents were divided over where the school should go: 21% agreed with the board’s decision to move it to Broken Ground, 44% said they preferred the Rundlett location and 35% were undecided. Notably, though, while the vast majority of residents who participated in the survey agreed with the general sentiment of the amendment, not everyone saw it as a direct referendum on the location. By contrast, only 35% of respondents said they felt the school board should reverse course now and rebuild at Rundlett. At the polls on election day, many voters were unaware that the middle school question would appear on their ballot and told the Monitor they voted in support because of a literal reading of the amendment’s language. As one voter put it, “People should have a say.” As soon as possible Beyond the question of voter intent, some district parents both in the audience and on the board wanted to ensure student needs weren’t overshadowed. For board member Cara Meeker, the best thing for the district is a new school as soon as possible — wherever it goes. “I’m thinking about this in terms of what is the fastest, cheapest way we can get the school built — a new school, at this juncture. With our options, rescinding the vote and moving it back to Rundlett is the only option that doesn’t make us wait for a vote in November and doesn’t put us at high risk of litigation,” she said. “I think we need to recognize that it’s possible that’s the fastest option.” During public comment, Nicole Fox similarly urged the board to move forward. While she pushed for the board to choose Rundlett a year ago, Fox said her primary goal is a new school as soon as possible — and she put in a lot of volunteer hours on committees for this project to make that happen. She didn’t want the amendments to pass because she feared their associated delays. But they did. “It’s really hard for me to look at you guys and have you say that this the community does not want the school built at Rundlett, even now,” Fox said. “That’s what they want. They voted. You can have another election, but it’s not going to change the outcome.” “Anything else,” she concluded, “is really just ignoring the voters and wasting time.” To make their decision, board members wanted more information about what the timeline and associated costs would be for each option they have now. Walsh requested a report to be presented and weighed at a future meeting, likely in January. Everything costs money Members of the school board and the concerned citizens’ group that has criticized it over the last year both feel that neither party has listened to — or is willing to listen to — the other. Wednesday, as in the past, speakers criticized the board for not reconsidering the location debate sooner, described the project as an extravagance and accused the board of concealing important financial information and skewing the facts about site comparisons. Meanwhile, members of the board expressed frustration that what they saw as a genuine pursuit of what is best for Concord schools had not resonated. “At this point, there’s no way that we’re able to have a conversation. I don’t feel like any information that I give in good faith is taken as being given in good faith,” Robinson said. “I think it really doesn’t matter how much more information we provide — people have made up their minds.” For Robinson, the deadlock has taken its toll. “Children have been completely written out of this conversation, for the most part,” she continued. “I thought for sure at one point, ‘okay, we’re gonna get through this. We’re gonna have an awesome school for kids’ — My children will never walk through those doors.” From timelines to price tags to the availability or not of state building aid , uncertainty about this project looms, Meeker noted. But, she continued, the board has a decision to make. “I don’t want to throw in the towel. I want to continue to advocate for all of the possible resources that we can get in this process. I don’t want to give up. I don’t want to assume we’re not getting a new school. I don’t want to assume we’re not going to move forward with what is best for our kids,” she said. “This is our city. These are our kids. These are our families. Everything costs money. That’s how our community is run. It’s how it’s built... I don’t necessarily want to drag it out, but I want to have the information so that we can make a decision, and then we just keep going.” Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com

As part of a national “moonshot” to cure blindness, researchers at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus will receive as much as $46 million in federal funding over the next five years to pursue a first-of-its-kind full eye transplantation. “This is no easy undertaking, but I believe we can achieve this together,” said Dr. Kia Washington, the lead researcher for the University of Colorado-led team, during a press conference Monday. “And in fact I’ve never been more hopeful that a cure for blindness is within reach.” The CU team was one of four in the United States that received funding awards from the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health , or ARPA-H. The CU-based group will focus on achieving the first-ever vision-restoring eye transplant by using “novel stem cell and bioelectronic technologies,” according to a news release announcing the funding. The work will be interdisciplinary, Washington and others said, and will link together researchers at institutions across the country. The four teams that received the funding will work alongside each other on distinct approaches, though officials said the teams would likely collaborate and eventually may merge depending on which research avenues show the most promise toward achieving the ultimate goal of transplanting an eye and curing blindness. Dr. Calvin Roberts, who will oversee the broader project for ARPA-H, said the agency wanted to take multiple “shots on goal” to ensure progress. “In the broader picture, achieving this would be probably the most monumental task in medicine within the last several decades,” said Dr. Daniel Pelaez of the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, which also received ARPA-H funding. Pelaez is the lead investigator for that team, which has pursued new procedures to successfully remove and preserve eyes from donors, amid other research. He told The Denver Post that only four organ systems have not been successfully transplanted: the inner ear, the brain, the spinal cord and the eye. All four are part of the central nervous system, which does not repair itself when damaged. If researchers can successfully transplant the human eye and restore vision to the patient, it might help unlock deeper discoveries about repairing damage to the brain and spine, Pelaez said, as well as addressing hearing loss. To succeed, researchers must successfully remove and preserve eyes from donors and then successfully connect and repair the optical nerve, which takes information from the eye and tells the brain what the eye sees. A team at New York University performed a full eye transplant on a human patient in November 2023, though the procedure — while a “remarkable achievement,” Pelaez said — did not restore the patient’s vision. It was also part of a partial face transplant; other approaches pursued via the ARPA-H funding will involve eye-specific transplants. Washington, the lead CU researcher, said she and her colleagues have already completed the eye transplant procedure — albeit without vision restoration — in rats. The CU team will next work on large animals to advance “optic nerve regenerative strategies,” the school said, as well as to study immunosuppression, which is critical to ensuring that patients’ immune systems don’t reject a donated organ. The goal is to eventually advance to human trials. Pelaez and his colleagues have completed their eye-removal procedure in cadavers, he said, and they’ve also studied regeneration in several animals that are capable of regenerating parts of their eyes, like salamanders or zebra fish. His team’s funding will focus in part on a life-support machine for the eye to keep it healthy and viable during the removal process. InGel Therapeutics, a Massachusetts-based Harvard spinoff and the lead of a third team, will pursue research on 3-D printed technology and “micro-tunneled scaffolds” that carry certain types of stem cells as part of a focus on optical nerve regeneration and repair, ARPA-H said. ARPH-A, created two years ago, will oversee the teams’ work. Researchers at 52 institutions nationwide will also contribute to the teams. The CU-led group will include researchers from the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University and Johns Hopkins University, as well as from the National Eye Institute . The teams will simultaneously compete and collaborate: Pelaez said his team has communicated with researchers at CU and at Stanford, another award recipient, about their eye-removal research. The total funding available for the teams is $125 million, ARPA-H officials said Monday, and it will be distributed in phases, in part dependent on teams’ success. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat who represents Denver in Congress, acknowledged the recent election results at the press conference Monday and pledged to continue fighting to preserve ARPA-H’s funding under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration. The effort to cure blindness, Washington joked, was “biblical” in its enormity — a reference to the Bible story in which Jesus cures a blind man. She and others also likened it to a moonshot, meaning the effort to successfully put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon nearly 50 years ago. If curing blindness is similar to landing on the moon, then the space shuttle has already left the launchpad, Washington said. “We have launched,” she said, “and we are on our trajectory.”Researchers launch “moonshot” to cure blindness through eye transplants

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Luke Williams feels Swansea ‘lost grip’ on game despite sealing victory at DerbyLOS ANGELES (AP) — Democrat Derek Tran ousted Republican U.S. Rep. Michelle Steel in a Southern California House district Wednesday that was specifically drawn to give Asian Americans a stronger voice on Capitol Hill. Steel said in a statement that “like all journeys, this one is ending for a new one to begin.” When she captured the seat in 2020, Steel joined Washington state Democrat Marilyn Strickland as the first Korean-American women elected to Congress. Tran, a lawyer and worker rights advocate and the son of Vietnamese refugees, declared victory earlier this week. He said his win “is a testament to the spirit and resilience of our community. As the son of Vietnamese refugees, I understand firsthand the journey and sacrifices many families in our district have made for a better life." The contest is one of the last to be decided this year, with Republicans now holding 220 seats in the House, with Democrats at 214. The Associated Press has not declared a winner in California's 13th District, where Democrat Adam Gray was leading Republican Rep. John Duarte by a couple of hundred votes. Steel held an early edge after Election Day, but late-counted ballots pushed Tran over the top. Steel filed a statement of candidacy on Monday with federal regulators, which would allow her to continue raising funds. It wasn’t immediately clear if she planned to seek a return to Congress. In the campaign, Tran warned of Republican threats to abortion rights. Steel opposes abortion with exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the pregnant woman, while not going so far as to support a federal ban. Tran also warned that President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House would put democracy at risk. On Capitol Hill, Steel has been outspoken in resisting tax increases and says she stands strongly with Israel in its war with Hamas. “As our greatest ally in the Middle East, the United States must always stand with Israel,” she said. She advocates for more police funding and has spotlighted her efforts on domestic violence and sexual abuse. The largest demographic in the district, which is anchored in Orange County southeast of Los Angeles, is Asian Americans, and it includes the nation’s biggest Vietnamese community. Democrats hold a 4-point registration edge. Michael R. Blood, The Associated PressIowa quarterback Cade McNamara released a statement Friday slamming the "100% false" media reports that suggested he had thrown his final pass for the Hawkeyes. McNamara has been sidelined since sustaining a concussion during the Oct. 26 win against Northwestern. Backup quarterback Brendan Sullivan has started the last two games for the Hawkeyes (6-4, 4-3 Big Ten) but is out with an ankle injury for Saturday's game at Maryland (4-6, 1-6). Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said earlier this week that Jackson Stratton will be the likely starter against the Terrapins if McNamara is unavailable. McNamara's cloudy status prompted speculation on a podcast this week that he was "not mentally ready to play." The podcast hosts from the Des Moines Register and The Athletic also suggested that McNamara -- who played three years at Michigan (2020-22) before transferring to Iowa -- is not "fit to play quarterback in the Big Ten right now." "We don't want to bury his career yet, but it does seem like that interception against Northwestern was his last snap as a Hawkeye," Leistikow said. McNamara, who passed for 1,017 yards with six touchdowns and five interceptions in eight games this season, released a statement updating his current status. "My status is the same as it's always been -- a proud member of this football team," he said. McNamara said he has not yet been cleared to play. He said he was cleared to practice on Sunday but suffered an "adverse reaction" and was unable to practice this week and therefore unable to travel with the team to Maryland. "I have been working with the University of Iowa doctors and trainers, a concussion specialist focused on vision training, as well as engaging in hyperbaric treatments as frequently as possible," McNamara said. "I have every intention to play versus Nebraska next Friday night and I am confident that my teammates will return from Maryland with a win." Including his time with the Wolverines, McNamara has completed 60.9 percent of his passes for 4,703 yards with 31 touchdowns and 15 interceptions in 34 games. --Field Level Media

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