At its Tuesday, August 11 meeting, the Board of Education (BOE) voted to recommend the Town of Newtown proceed with a school building project for the construction of a new grade six through eight middle school and establish the appropriate building committee to plan and oversee the project in accordance with Connecticut law.

BOE members approved the motion, with six voting in favor and one choosing to abstain.

The recommendation for the Town to proceed with the project and establish a building committee does not necessarily mean that a new school will be built, as clarified by Superintendent of Schools Anne Uberti and BOE Chair Alison Plante. The building committee would be formed for the purpose of exploring the construction of a new middle school, which would house grades six to eight.

"We’re not obligated, after we create a building committee, to then eventually build the building, but that would be the appropriate group to then do that next level of exploration and put a more precise process cost estimate on it," Plante clarified.

The recommendations came after Uberti delivered a presentation on the Facilities Planning Committee, which she called the culmination of the group's work.

The Facilities Planning Committee was established at the BOE's meeting on March 3 earlier this year. It was made to be an ad hoc committee under the BOE that provides a "clear framework for evaluating the district's long-term facility needs in alignment with its strategic plan and Portrait of a Graduate."

The committee included a few BOE members, along with representation from the Board of Finance, the Legislative Council, district administrators, teachers, and parents.

At the August 12 meeting, Uberti said there were a lot of pieces to that charge, but a part of it was to look at a master plan that would take into account the foundational work that was already completed for the district. This includes a facilities condition assessment, a ten-year enrollment projection, and a district-wide capacity study.

The group met around half a dozen times since early spring, according to Uberti.

She said the first thing they did was take all of those pieces and digest them as it was a lot of information for people who do not always work in that realm. Then, the committee began to answer the question of what should this long-term plan look like for their schools, and how do they make the most responsible decision to support whatever that plan is.

She noted that the committee thought they would get a lot of public input prior to making a decision. However, they felt the topic was very complex because there is no straight path forward.

"And to bring a myriad of options to the public would be very confusing and overwhelming because it would be hard for the public to digest all of the foundational information that had been presented," Uberti explained. "So, the committee favored a different approach, which was working through some of those options as a committee to try to at least narrow [down our options]."

Uberti shared the committee faced a lot of work over their months of deliberation. The facilities condition assessment identified approximately $97.6 million in capital investment over the next ten years should the district maintain all its schools in their current configurations.

Nearly $40 million is associated with Newtown Middle School (NMS) and approximately $26 million is associated with Middle Gate Elementary school — together, the two buildings account for more than $65 million of the identified need.

Uberti noted that the assessment was completed around two and a half years ago, so it is likely that these numbers are already outdated.

She said the question for the committee became, "Before we invest that level of taxpayer resources into these buildings, are we confident that there isn’t a better way to utilize them? And also, is that the best use of taxpayers’ money?”

Analysis

One of the most important conclusions the committee reached is that the district's schools function as an interconnected system. A decision about NMS affects Reed Intermediate School, a decision about Reed affects the elementary schools, and, in turn, affects what options the district might have for dealing with the issues at Middle Gate.

Additionally, Uberti said she feels there is a lot of community awareness around the issues with NMS, but that the community is less aware of the costs that Middle Gate will face in the next ten years.

The School Facilities Committee began looking at what kind of decisions they would need to make in order for the district to have the greatest impact on education as well as operational costs over the long term. No matter how they approached this discussion, they came back to NMS every time.

Uberti said there are a few paths when thinking about NMS. The first is to make a substantial investment in renovating the existing middle school and maintain its current grade configuration. However, she said the building does not have the space to accommodate a third grade, so that was not an option.

The second is to pursue the construction of a new middle school, and the grade configuration could either be grades six to eight or seven to eight. Uberti said the committee strongly favored looking at the construction of a new six to eight middle school, namely because it gives them the chance to create a modern middle school environment designed for students in grades six through eight.

It would also return sixth graders to a middle school model. The committee spent a lot of time talking about how the current configuration impacts kids, according to Uberti.

"And having sixth grade separated from the natural flow of educational materials, which is a six through eight scope ... is something that we feel does not necessarily benefit our sixth graders or our sixth grade teachers who don't have access to their peers who are teaching the same programs in seventh and eighth grade," Uberti explained.

She said that they must also consider the cost of building a school. The grants associated with building a school are tied to enrollment, so if the Town were to pursue building a seven to eight middle school because of the decline in enrollment, the new building would be much smaller than the one the district has now.

Pulling sixth grade out of Reed also partially solves another problem the committee was interested in: reducing the number of transitions. Uberti said the district has an extra transition because of the intermediate model, but there is no way for them to eliminate it. However, if they built a six to eight school by pulling sixth grade out of Reed, they would be eliminating two two-year schools.

Uberti said she believes a three-year school is much better than a two-year school. She has led a two-year intermediate school and a three-year intermediate school, and feels that extra year makes a big difference.

"In a two-year school, kids are either there for their first year or the last year, and it's just very, very hard to get to know kids the way you would like to," Uberti said. "So we felt that putting sixth grade back into the middle school and having a two-year Reed and a three-year [NMS] would be desirable."

The Reed Question

If they were to take sixth grade out of Reed, Uberti said the immediate question is what they would do with the intermediate school.

The committee explored two possibilities. One was to make Reed a large elementary school. The group considered moving Middle Gate's population to Reed and eliminating Middle Gate as a school, thereby eliminating the costs associated with maintaining it.

Uberti said Middle Gate has some issues besides the preestablished infrastructure needs. She noted it does not have space within the building where it can gather its full student population, and the property that the school is built on causes terrible traffic flow, with kids crossing in front of buses in the front of the school.

However, making Reed a K-5 school would require the other three elementary schools to become K-5 schools. This is not ideal, as the buildings already have a space problem being K-4 schools, and it would potentially require redistricting all of the elementary schools.

"And everyone knows there would be no appetite for that," Uberti said. "It would be very, very disruptive."

Uberti said that the other, more simple possibility would be having Reed become a four through five school. Essentially, the district would have four K-3 schools, and the fourth graders would go to Reed a year earlier than they already do.

Reed can comfortably fit fourth and fifth graders because the district is currently averaging about 300 students per grade. However, when it does begin to increase, Reed has the capacity to handle that increase, even if it were to encounter a higher enrollment than the district is banking on.

"So it became clear to the committee that the best use of Reed is to be a pressure valve release. And if you take fourth grade and move it out of the elementary schools into Reed, you are going to solve the space issues," Uberti said.

What this would not do, she said, is solve the Middle Gate issue. This means they still have a school that is "probably nearing close to $30 million in infrastructure needs."

The committee started to talk about this, but decided, knowing its community, that coming out with two building projects simultaneously is not something it felt would be well-received.

"Especially since I don't think we've ever talked about Middle Gate in terms of having these needs. There would need to be some lead time on that," Uberti said.

This is what led the committee to its ultimate decision: to encourage the BOE to recommend the Town pursue the building of a new six through eight middle school. Uberti clarified the call to build a new middle school belongs to the Town, and would ultimately have to go to referendum and be decided by the voters. The committee, by State statute, has to be a town committee.

Uberti added, "We certainly would be a big part of that, obviously, for all the education pieces and community engagement around that. We have to hire a consultant to guide us through that, but that's the obvious place to start."

Once the hypothetical new middle school is complete, they would then look to, down the road, repurpose Reed into a four through five building, with them calling it either an upper elementary school or intermediate school.

Middle Gate would still have issues, but would then have space.

"And if the voters did not support the building of a new middle school, then discussion of anything that happens at Middle Gate would be fruitless," Uberti explained.

Additional Discussion

BOE member Melissa Beylouni did not feel comfortable voting on the recommendations, as she felt she needed more time to research the impact of K-3 and four through five.

"I’m all for the process, but if you’re asking me to vote tonight, I cannot vote ... I have not read about the different models that are being proposed if we build a six through eight middle school, and I can't make an informed vote tonight," Beylouni said.

While Sandy Hook Elementary School finished construction and opened in 2016, Beylouni said the gardens in front of the school were in complete disrepair and community members had to work together to restore and rejuvenate the area.

"My problem is, it's very frustrating because we don't make repairs when they need to be done, and we have to do a CIP, and then we have to do this and that, and then five to ten years down the road, a project that was $3 million is now $15 million," Beylouni said. "And so we’re going to build a new building to go to disrepair?"

BOE member Shannon Tomai said the beauty of the K-3 plan recommended by the committee is that they reduce an entire transition. The students are already transitioning, but are transitioning twice. In this instance, Tomai said they would transition from K-3 to four through five, and then to six through eight.

"[Currently,] we lose all of the ability to sort of piggyback on what's happening in sixth grade into seventh and eighth because they're in separate locations, and the teachers are at separate locations, and the curriculums are differing, even at Reed between [grades] four and five. So we do find an element of standardization by moving [the middle school] to six to eight," Tomai said.

For Beylouni's other point, Plante said they do not have a cost estimate yet. That's one of the first steps that would likely happen after a prospective building committee is seated. They would bring in the right architects and put together more precise cost estimates.

The Facilities Planning Committee did not do that, as they did not have any outside help and were not equipped to do it themselves. However, getting a cost estimate is something the building committee would look to do.

Uberti noted that the Town would also have to complete a feasibility study, as one of the other big questions is where they would put the new middle school. It could potentially be built on the property of the old middle school, although there are water issues on the site.

Whether the new building could be engineered around that or not, Uberti said, would be something discussed during the feasibility stage. This is on top of exploring other locations in town where the school could potentially go.

Uberti said these recommendations were a unanimous decision for the Facilities Planning Committee due to the cost avoidance they feel will benefit taxpayers in town.

"But that’s a whole set of work that has to be done, and ideally, it’s done once that building committee is named to maximize potential reimbursements," Uberti explained.

What the recommendations approved, Uberti said she will be communicating with the Town. She added that they have had some informal conversations about what their process is, and there is not enough clarity on where the topic lives, whether it is the Board of Selectmen or the Legislative Council.

"So I think there's a lot of work to be done. This is an unknown path. We haven't done this in a long time," Uberti said. "I know it's going to mean a lot of meetings and a lot of talking, and that's fine because I think it's important."

Uberti noted that several members still had concerns about Middle Gate. For that reason, there was a commitment that they would revisit that, but they will see if they can get something going for the middle school. If they are successful with that, they can come back and revisit Middle Gate and do a similar process.

However, Uberti said doing so would be complex and require a different layer of work.

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Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.