As A Stopgap—

School Board Weighs Portable Classrooms Option

By Eliza Hallabeck

Portable classrooms were offered as a more defined temporary solution for the overcrowding expected for Newtown High School next fall during the Board of Education’s meeting last week, September 16.

No final decision was made by the end of the meeting, but the option was discussed and a possible final decision may happen during the school board’s next meeting on October 7.

“We need to face the reality that we do not have a place for students,” said Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson.

With the Newtown High School expansion project pushed back due to the budget coming in over budget by $6 million, the extra space the board was counting on for the fall of 2009 students will not be ready in time.

Dr Robinson said she and Director of Facilities for Newtown Public Schools Gino Faiella made a trip to the fire marshal for Sandy Hook to verify that portables are an option.

The board asked Mr Faiella to help Dr Robinson describe the tentative design for the portables because he had put together a sketch of how the extra classrooms would be placed in the parking lot.

“The fire marshal has approved this,” said Dr Robinson regarding the sketch.

The eight extra classrooms would be placed next to the existing portables and would take up space that now allows for 35 staff and faculty parking spaces.

The removal of extra parking space deducts further from the amount of space the school is loosing due to the Newtown High School expansion project. Student parking was limited to seniors this year, and students who could produce a need for the space. In total the school is currently down 100 parking spaces that the construction will need for space while it is built, and the 35 spaces will be taken away from staff and faculty.

As a temporary solution to the spaces issue in the parking lot, Dr Robinson and Mr Faiella designed space along the area near the side parking lot leading up to the area in front of the athletic field. These parking space would most likely only be temporary, and Mr Faiella said they would probably not be paved, just covered with stone.

“It’s going to need to be excavated,” said Mr Faiella.

The portables are a temporary solution to the overcrowding at the high school, and, according to Dr Robinson, they do not help with all of the current needs of the school.

“Basically what this is doing is buying us classrooms,” said Board of Education Chair Elaine McClure. “Expensive classrooms.”

Dr Robinson said adding more portables to the high school campus does not alleviate the need for laboratories, more gym space, and the full amount of space needed for the classrooms. She said it is also an expensive option to take.

Board member David Nanavaty said he was concerned with students walking through inclement weather or even across the existing parking lot to get to their classrooms, but Mr Faiella said an overhang would be added and a door at the back of the portables that are already in place would allow students to bypass walking through the parking lot.

Students, teachers, and staff have been handling the issue of overcrowding at the school now well, according to Dr Robinson.

“I’m very impressed with the morale at that school,” said Dr Robinson.

Board member Lillian Bittman said it is frustrating for the parents to hear from their students that they can not take the class they want to take because there is no room for them. She said hearing about students walking through the hallways because there are no classrooms available, space in the library for extra students or extra open rooms for them is disappointing.

“I think it’s a crime that students can’t get into the library,” said Ms Bittman, “they get turned away.”