It's no secret that there is trouble brewing with some of the school facilities, so it comes as no surprise that the Board of Education 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.

The town's current middle school, located on Queen Street, was built in 1953 and was originally the town's high school.

Currently in year five of the Capital Improvement Plan, there are three Middle School renovations tentatively planned — replacing generator and switch at the middle school for $250,000; an electric system upgrade at the middle school for $1,775,700; and interior restoration at the middle school for $1,552,000.

Facilities Director John Barlow also noted that NMS’s emergency generator system, which provides the emergency lighting for the building and all the emergency systems, is “in dire need of being replaced” due to being “very aged out” at over 25 years old.

Superintendent of Schools Anne Uberti shared the committee faced a lot of work over its 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noted that the assessment was completed around two and a half years ago, so it is likely that these numbers are already outdated.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?”

One problem with the current configuration of the town's schools is the amount of transitions students currently face. They start in one of the district's four elementary schools — Hawley, Head O' Meadow, Sandy Hook, or Middle Gate schools — then transition to Reed Intermediate School, then to Newtown Middle School, and finally to Newtown High School. Most school districts have only two transitions: grades K through five to grades six through eight to grades nine through twelve.

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.

As Uberti noted, having a building committee begin planning for a new middle school does not obligate the town — it would require approvals from several town boards, the Board of Selectmen, the Board of Finance, and the Legislative Council, as well as further approvals from the Board of Education itself. And that's all before voters would get a final say at referendum.

But this is something worth looking at, and while up front costs may be high, it may save taxpayers a lot of money compared to trying to maintain crumbling old buildings.