School Board Wrestling With

More High School Options

By Susan Coney

The Board of Education this week continued grappling with plans to resolve the overcrowded conditions at the high school. It is not much closer to a solution than it was a year ago.

The primary focus of the January 17 school board meeting was to narrow the options and chart a direction to alleviate the space needs issues of Newtown High School. Enrollment figures, which must be reported to the state every year on October 1, placed the high school population at 1,687, which is 87 students over capacity.

In an effort to work with the town to determine the most viable solution to meet district and town needs, school officials took the past year to compile information from several different sources. Most recently Newtown High School was provided with a list of recommendations as a result of the comprehensive study done by The New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), which evaluated the high school for state accreditation. Many of those recommendations addressed overcrowding issues.

In addition, school officials received comments from a specially appointed High School Space Needs Committee November 7 recommending school officials add a freshman addition to the existing school.

For more than a year Assistant Superintendent Alice Jackson met with architects, as well as several focus groups comprised of certified staff, students, parents, and community leaders to come up with the most educationally sound solution to meeting the educational needs of the expanding student population.

At Tuesday’s meeting board members were provided with yet another set of possible solutions. A chart outlining the pros and cons of developing an off-site satellite program at Fairfield Hills to accommodate 500 students at a projected cost of between $30 to $40 million dollars was part of the presentation.

Both Superintendent Evan Pitkoff and Assistant Superintendent Jackson met with administrators, staff, parents, and community representatives for a lengthy roundtable-style meeting on Thursday, January 5, at the high school to focus on the feasibility of an off-site satellite program at Fairfield Hills. Suggestions from that meeting were then presented to the Board of Education for review.

Four program designs were outlined for a satellite option. One design targeted the satellite program to be used by high school seniors, providing them with core academic offerings in an all-day or half-day time period. Another design suggested a half-day program at the satellite school open to all grades, targeting course offerings such as culinary, greenhouse, computer repair, nurtury, graphics, video production, as well as a tutorial center and cafetorium.

Dr Pitkoff also provided the board with four sets of building options: off-site satellite program, additions and renovations at the existing building, building a new high school (and moving the middle school to the present high school facility), or building a second full high school for 800 to 1,000 students.

Board member David Nanavaty commented that he liked the idea of a satellite program targeting courses such as culinary, greenhouse, nurtury as well as other more trade-related offerings. He said, “We need to look outside the box, given what I’m hearing from the Board of Finance and the town. Financially I don’t see us being able to build a new high school. Maybe in the long term, move [the high school], in a transition to Fairfield Hills, then move the middle school to the high school, and town offices to the middle school. Over a longer period of time transition into a new high school on the Fairfield Hills site.”

Chairman Elaine McClure opened the forum and asked for comments from community leaders who were in attendance at the meeting. Newly elected Board of Finance member John Torok observed, “The magnitude of this is frightening.”

He suggested that the board solicit more input from the community, using focus groups to help steer the town towards the best long-range solution. He also emphasized the need to maintain quality education and not put a short-term Band-aid on the problem.

“Maybe we need to take a hit on the bond rating for a couple of years,” he said.

Following the meeting, Mr Torok said that he was taken by surprise when called upon for comment by the chair, and that his comments should have been qualified as coming from a concerned taxpayer and parent who was not speaking for, or as a representative of the finance board.

“I was put on the spot,” Mr Torok said. “And I don’t think I articulated myself as I should have.”

He said that the town should never put its highly favorable bond rating at risk for long periods of time, and would only consider temporarily exceeding the cap for debt servie to finance a critical school project as a “last resort.”

“By no means did I ever intend to imply that the town should exceed the (debt service) cap,” Mr Torok said. “Based on the long-term anticipated needs of our community, I think we need more collaborative planning among the school board, the finance board, the (Legislative) Council and the selectmen, and less compartmentalized budget planning from individual departments.”

Taking an opportunity to comment to the school board, newly-elected Legislative Council member Keith Jacobs encouraged community participation in discussions, and to keep in mind what is best for the town, not just what is the most economical.

Alice Jackson reported that the most recent focus group study provided no overall consensus, but the main suggestions were to look for a long-term solution, more than a four- or five-year projection. The group expressed concern about removing part of the population from a school as in the satellite option, stating that it affects the composition of the school. Some felt it was time to build an entire new school, others recommended the possibility building a second high school.

High school Principal Arlene Gottesman said the focus should be on what is best for the students. She did not support the idea of having two high schools, stating it creates fierce competition between the two schools.

“We lose focus on the students,” she stressed.

Board member Paul Mangiafico asked Dr Pitkoff for some guidance.

“We need marching orders in order to get a direction and make a decision. We need to lay out some options instead of just spinning our wheels,” he said.

Fellow board member Lisa Schwartz asked the superintendent if it was reasonable that the board would have a decision about where they were going regarding the high school by the June 30 deadline, which is the last date the town may submit a grant application to be considered for state funding on a project. “I think we need a timeline,” she suggested.

Toward the close of the meeting the board decided to conduct an open forum in February to learn what the town would like to see as a solution.