BOF Members Wonder—

Could Declining Enrollment Justify ‘Mothballing’ An Elementary School?

By John Voket

Given the current economy, which is affecting everything from global commodities to the number of new police cars patrolling Newtown’s neighborhoods, finance board member Mike Portnoy thinks the town and school district should thoroughly explore every option to stem local tax increases — including the temporary closure of an elementary school.

This provocative ideas surfaced February 8 as Mr Portnoy observed declining enrollment projections, particularly in the lower grades of Newtown’s public schools.

“This is really radical, and no one has approached the Board of Ed on this — I’m sure it hasn’t been discussed yet. But it appears to me that at the elementary levels there are adequate classrooms in three of the four schools to accommodate the current enrollment townwide,” Mr Portnoy said. “It would certainly in my mind save a whole bunch of money if it’s possible.”

Mr Portnoy acknowledged that nobody has studied the idea yet, but in studying enrollment numbers he noted that in the K–fourth grade segment, “The numbers go down substantially.”

“Kindergarten projections are under 300 for the class, and it goes up to 413 at fourth grade,” he observed.

Finance board member Martin Gersten said he concurred with his colleague’s observations.

“If you look at some of those schools, you might save two-and-a-half million dollars if you mothball them,” Mr Gersten said, adding that looking at mothballing the “neediest” elementary school would also permit the district to temporarily defer some or all renovation costs, as well.

“It’s a wonderful concept. I don’t think we could get to it immediately, but it would be a material savings,” Mr Gersten said.

Chairman John Kortze also cautioned, “It’s not going to happen this year.”

Following the meeting, Mr Kortze told The Bee that Newtown is not alone in its municipal financial challenges.

“We are in an awful spot,” Mr Kortze said. “But we have to figure out the best thing to do. There are many ideas — all correlated to the severity of the big [economic] picture.”

Saying Newtown should expect to face “possibly the most difficult economic challenges we’ll ever see,” in the coming years, the finance chairman nonetheless recognized that virtually any actions to reduce the town’s greatest financial liability, “overhead,” would result in “very hard and unpopular” personnel reductions.

“We can’t add overhead, it just compounds a problem we have ignored for too long,” he said. “I’m sensitive to the fact that these are people’s jobs, but we should have been managing this by attrition. Instead we just keep adding jobs.”

Mr Kortze said any argument that postponing or deferring renovations would end up costing taxpayers substantially more in the future, in his assessment, is currently a moot point — with evidence borne out in recent projects on both the town and school sides of the equation.

“We’re not in an inflationary environment,” Mr Kortze said. “There’s no [project cost] escalations now, only declines.”

In a follow-up interview, Mr Portnoy said his idea does not necessarily involve closing an elementary school forever, because he believes in the long-run, enrollment “will level out, eventually.”

“Looking at enrollment [exclusively], there’s an excess of classrooms that would justify turning four schools into three,” Mr Portnoy said. “In these times we have to think of all the options.”

He also agreed that such a move would have to make economic sense, but if the net savings to taxpayers is in excess of $1 million per year, the town should seriously consider the option.

School board Vice Chairman Katherine Fetchick, who was representing her board at the finance meeting, said that considering only the classroom numbers, the district could fit all Head O’ Meadow School students into other schools. But that does not account for the extra space that would be required for things like physical education, cafeteria, and arts program needs.

A possible work-around to that challenge might be to utilize two sets of “quad” modular classrooms that the town owns, and the short-term lease of additional modulars, to be placed at each of the remaining three elementary school sites to free up space inside the buildings.

Ms Fetchick also pointed out that if Newtown mothballs an elementary school building, it may be required to ensure the facility meets current ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) standards once or if it is reopened. And there is no clear idea that the remaining elementary schools have the surplus exterior space to install temporary classrooms on site.

Ultimately, Ms Fetchick said that the district should engage an immediate and comprehensive school population study before any discussion about mothballing a school or redistricting is introduced.

“But we do need to be responsible in regard to the enrollment,” she said.

Mr Kortze said temporarily or permanently closing an elementary school may not be the best option, but the town should be committed to exhausting every avenue for discussion on cutting costs.

“We need to figure out the best way to get students through the system,” he said. “Is talking about mothballing or redistricting good for the taxpayers? I think the taxpayers expect us to ask, ‘what if.’ Enrollment is falling off the cliff. What are we going to do about it?”