Millions Now

And Millions Later?

To the Editor:

From the Connecticut State Dept of Education website, I checked into the amount of space we have for our high school students.  According to the August 2003 information, our high school has the current capacity for 1,525 students and our actual high school enrollment is 1,688 for 2005-2006 year. The new revised eight-year projection received by Evan Pitkoff on November 1 was 1,982 by the year 2014. The current square footage of the high school is 285,000, which means that each student is allotted 169 square feet (which includes the square footage of the pool and the auditorium, therefore the students actually do not have 169 square feet at this time). For 1,982 students, we would need 345,859 square feet, which means we would need to add more than 51,303 square feet to meet the 174.5 square feet per student state recommendation. We would need to factor out the square footage of the pool and the auditorium therefore more than 345,859 square feet is required to appropriately accommodate each student. The Expansion Plan C will add 48,000 square feet. Unless I am missing some vital information, the students would not have more than the state recommended amount of space by the end of the eight-year period. We would be short of space by that time again especially if the enrollment increases beyond the projected numbers which is highly likely due to the fact that 34 percent of land is still available for development and as empty-nesters downsize and younger families move into town with children.

 This exact short-term strategy was used in 1997 with $28 million dollars spent to address the space issue. We will be paying millions now and millions more within the next five to ten years to address the same space issue. Addressing the space issue appropriately now will save this town millions within the next ten years. We may need to spend more now to build a brand new school to accommodate for the future needs beyond the eight reimbursable years to save money. Also Plan C does not address the renovation needs of our existing high school to alleviate programmatic issues. Just adding appropriate space will not solve the programmatic problems that exist today. Many municipalities have recently addressed their high school space needs and many have made long- term accommodations beyond the eight-year benchmark.

The middle school auditorium and cafeteria renovation is expected to cost $18 million, which has been put on a lower priority list and that needs to be addressed as well. How long are we willing to wait for the middle school renovations? We need to consider moving the middle school to the existing high school, moving Hawley to the middle school, and redistricting the elementary levels, and using Hawley for a central office. Doing this would result in savings by eliminating rental cost of the space at the Tier One building. Building a separate recreation center with a pool, an auditorium, senior center, and a teen center would eliminate the need to build a pool and an auditorium at the new high school thus providing more square footage for the students and at the same time improving the quality of life of every Newtown citizen.

Po Murray

38 Charter Ridge Drive, Newtown                        November 8, 2005