District Will Be Flexible With 5/6 School

By Jeff White

With the reality of a town-owned Fairfield Hills quickly taking shape and the site’s advisory committee currently reviewing possible development “visions,” Superintendent of Schools John Reed said this week that the district will remain flexible on the final site of their proposed school for fifth and sixth grades.

“We are certainly not involved in lobbying for another site over the Watertown Hall site that we’ve talked about for the last two years, but if others feel it would help to have the field and school complex located across the street [then it could be possible],” Dr Reed said Wednesday.

Across the street in this case would be Cochran House, a site that the school board considered throughout last summer and fall, opting to quietly shelve the option in favor of a new school on the parcel of land where Watertown Hall now sits.

Although the school board clearly favors the use of Watertown Hall for the 5/6 school, advisory committee members, most notably Ian Engelman’s “municipal-based” group, are taking a different approach. The group is considering the possibility of demolishing Cochran House and suggesting the school be placed there, freeing up Watertown Hall to be “building banked” along with Danbury Hall.

But the advisory committee’s chairman Michael Floros said this week that nothing was official or definite about the “visions” being considered. “I don’t know if we are going to say what goes in what building,” he said. “We are going to say that some space should be set aside for a school,” though, he continued, the committee will ultimately defer to the Board of Education’s judgment at what site lends itself better to a school.

With the Cochran House option back on the table for Fairfield Hills decisionmakers, the possibility exists that the school board might be asked to consider a different site for their school. The funding that the town will be asked to vote on next week for the school board’s architect will be used to “get the ball rolling” on design plans that are not site-specific. Since a building does not have to be chosen right away, Dr Reed indicated that the architect’s work would still be valid should Cochran House supplant Watertown Hall as the preferred school site.

“I don’t feel that it would have any cost implications whether [the school] was built on one side of the street or the other,” he said. The architects could design a school that could fit either building, he explained.

The school board will need to move on to a site-specific phase of its school development project no later than May. First Selectman Herb Rosenthal said Thursday morning that although he did not think it would take until May to reach a consensus on Fairfield Hills, “we are not going to speed up the decision because of the school.” Mr Rosenthal indicated that although the town’s Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Commission preferred a school located within Fairfield Hills’ core campus, if the school went on the Watertown Hall site, P&Z would work around it.

Mr Rosenthal did acknowledge that the school board was keeping its options opened.

Dr Reed indicated that although the district is poised to move on the proposal, it will be open to a dialogue about which site would be best. From the school board’s perspective, taking some action is better than waiting and delaying the potential school opening in the fall of 2002.

“We are willing to go anywhere people want us to go, we just want to get going,” Dr Reed stressed.