Montessori Students Left Without A School

By Jeff White

Inside the classrooms of the new Fraser-Woods School in the former Gordon Fraser building on South Main Street, filled soup dispensers sit next to sinks, hooks meant to hold jackets remain unused, and cubbies lined neatly with glossy, blue folders await the arrival of Bobby, Dayton, and Clair.

The Montessori students will have some time before they can claim them.

Students’ first day of school in their new facility was scheduled for Tuesday, April 4. However, the town’s building inspectors, during a walk through, deemed the building not ready to be inhabited and did not endorse a certificate of occupancy. Montessori parents spent most of last week receiving nightly phone calls from school officials reporting that although classrooms were ready to receive students, the school did not have the go ahead from the town.

Parents found themselves in a bind to arrange for day care, as the former Montessori school in Dodgingtown had been officially sold Monday, April 3, leaving children with no place to go to school.

In what Montessori Head Myriam Woods is calling a “miscommunication” between the school and town agencies, students remained out of school this week, with no clear indication of when they might be able to return.

  In a statement released Monday, the Newtown Montessori Society’s (NMS) Board of Trustees said that the new Fraser-Woods School “…is ready to be approved by the Newtown building, fire, and health inspectors. However, due to our misinterpretation of what was approved by the Newtown Planning and Zoning Commission, the partial certificate of occupancy has not yet been able to be issued by them. We are working closely with the Newtown Planning and Zoning Commission to resolve the matter as quickly as possible so that classes may begin.”

Last summer in late July, P&Z passed an amendment to existing zoning regulations governing the Gordon Fraser building, which designated a school as a permitted use for an industrial zone. NMS returned to P&Z last August with specific plans for a school and their application for a “special exception” to actually turn the inside of the Fraser building into a school. It took close to four months for the society to receive it.

The apparent confusion that has arisen between town agencies and NMS in the last week centers on Montessori’s “special exception” to zoning regulations, which it received from P&Z in late November. This special exception called for an approximately 30,000 square foot area to be completed prior to students occupying the building. NMS never intended to complete this area in one phase, and thought that P&Z understood that an area approximately 18,000 square feet in size would be ready for last week’s hoped-for opening, with the remaining work to be completed by the fall.

Building Official Tom Paternoster said this week that he was not aware that the new school was going to be completed in two phases. Mr Paternoster does maintain that from the Building Department’s perspective, the facility meets proper regulations, especially after putting in place a two-hour fire wall to separate the finished portion of the building from the portion still slated for construction.

Another problem with the new school was that a completed septic system was not in place last week as the school was preparing to open, prompting town health officials to delay their approval. Donna McCarthy, the town’s director of environmental health, said last week that the septic system would be ready by this week, and that it meets health department regulations. She did, however, express surprise when she learned that the Montessori Society intended to start school last week, saying that the school had not indicated that they intended to bring back students.

A temporary certificate of occupancy, which is what the new school needs for students to resume classes, can not be issued by the Building Department until all the other town agencies sign off on the school. Right now, a Montessori lawyer is busy drafting an amendment to the school’s special exception that will eventually validate the two-phase construction, should it be accepted by P&Z. However, a meeting with P&Z could take as long as three weeks to organize.

Coping With The Delay

Though the situation surrounding the Fraser-Woods School’s opening has been called a misunderstanding by the school’s board of trustees, parents left scrambling for day care and ways for their children to spend their days remained angry this week.

“It’s been a very public event so far,” said one parent, who asked not to be identified. She referred to the publicity given to the school’s pending opening. “They’re trying to be positive, but now they’ve become very cryptic.

“[School officials] are not being honest about what’s going on. It is not going well, and the kids are suffering. The parents have not been kept informed, nor have we been confided in,” she said.

Still, other parents, like Aileen Hopper, support the school and are ready to weather the delay. “I’m willing to wait for them to sort this out,” she said this week. “We’re all working together, we’re a community, we’re dedicated to our school. We’re not going to lose out. I have no doubt that in some way it’s going to be for the best for the majority of people.”

One parent put the cost of educating a Montessori Student at $50 per day. The question on the minds of many parents is whether or not they will see any tuition reimbursement from the school, since their children stand to be out of school for the next few weeks. “We are going to make up time, and no other decision [concerning reimbursements] has been made as of yet,” school Head Myriam Woods said Wednesday.

The school scheduled several field trips last week to keep students busy, and teachers are looking into ways of utilizing other sites to hold classes.

Yet as of Tuesday this week, the school had not filed for an amendment to its special exception, and it remains unclear how long students will remain out of school.

“Meanwhile, alternative education programs have been developed for the students,” said a statement from the school’s board of trustees, “and the school community is working together to minimize the impact on the students and their families.”