Space Needs Proposal Does Not End School Board’s Discussion Of Other Options

By Susan Coney

The Board of Education received the recommendations provided by the Space Needs Committee regarding the high school expansion at its Wednesday, November 9, meeting. The recommendation, however, did not stop the board from discussing a variety of other options for meeting Newtown’s need for more high school space — including a separate new high school for the town.

Space Needs Committee Chairman William Lavery presented the committee’s suggestions by saying that it was unanimously decided that the committee would endorse Option C at a cost of $29,754,000 million as presented by architectural/engineering firm Fletcher Thompson.

Mr Lavery emphasized that the Space Needs Committee was given a very narrow charge of determining whether the high school required additional space and if so where the expansion should be placed; on or off site. The committee determined that the high school was operating at below the state required square footage per student. The committee also agreed that the school needed additional classrooms and cafeteria space.

When the committee was formed in February 2004, it was told to plan for a maximum of 1,900 students. New state enrollment projections, however, which the Space Needs Committee was not privy to until this week, estimate that by the year 2014-2015 the high school will be up to 1,982 students, 82 over proposed capacity.

Several school board members voiced concerns that the expansion of Option C would be a temporary, short-term fix to a much larger problem. All agreed that by the time the expansion would be completed — in 33 months at the earliest — the school may once again be over capacity.

School board member Andrew Buzzi said that the planning committee for the 1997 expansion of the high school has been unduly criticized by the public for not planning sufficiently, when the reality is that they planned in their expansion for more students than the state projections then called for. “So they did a good job planning with the information that they were provided with at the time,” Mr Buzzi said.

Similarly, during the public participation portion of the meeting, four residents urged the board to consider more long-term solutions to the high school overcrowding dilemma.

Resident Joyce LaForte suggested that the expansion of the high school should be larger. She said that the public at large was not aware that the school board’s hands are tied with the expansion. “A lot of people are not aware that the expansion is not your decision. In order to get state funding you can only build out so far,” she said.

Mr Lavery said, “The expansion is at the maximum we can do under the state regulations and receive the 34 percent reimbursement. Any larger expansion would not get the reimbursement and the town would pay 100 percent for anything over. It was repeated several times throughout the lengthy meeting that the state will only reimburse following the state enrollment projections for eight years out.

After Mr Lavery gave his committee’s recommendation the discussion veered in a new direction of exploring other options such as building a new high school. When asked what a projected cost for a new high school for approximately 2,000 students would be, Fletcher/Thompson representative Joe Costa said that if the school was built on town-owned land the cost would be between $160 to $170 million dollars, much of which would not be reimbursable by the state.

Mr Costa said that the Reed school was completed in January 2003 at a cost of $28 million for 1,100 students. He said today that number would be $74 million if the school were to be completed in the year 2007, because costs have escalated so dramatically. He commented, “In a six-year period it is shocking that prices have increased so much.”

School board member Paul Mangiafico opened up discussion for other options such as the possibility of using the middle school for offices and building a new seventh, eighth, and ninth grade school, helping to alleviate overcrowding at the high school.

Superintendent Evan Pitkoff stated that short-term solutions, none of which he was fond of, could provide some relief until an expansion was made, such as the use of portables, a split schedule, or larger class size.

Currently, the high school operates on an eight-period schedule, with students required to take only five classes per day. Of the 1,600-plus students at the high school, 962 have two or more study halls per day due partially to the overcrowding; and many students are unable to take the more popular elective courses such as culinary arts because the demand for those courses is so high.

The school board adjourned its meeting at 10:45 pm, resolving to continue its discussions of the high school expansion in greater depth at a future meeting.