In April 22 Referendum—

School Officials See Options If NHS Expansion Is Rejected

By John Voket

School officials acknowledged Wednesday that a proposed high school expansion will not die or even face substantial delays if voters turn down a $38.8 million referendum scheduled for April 22. Faced with cutting the project budget, or losing maximum state reimbursement by failing to secure taxpayer support this year, Board of Education and district leaders said this week they still have options.

The school district business manager suggested it might be possible to mount up to three referenda on the project before a June 30 expiration date on currently available state grants would kill the plan for now if it is not approved by then.

School board chairman Elaine McClure said, however, that the only cost concessions available to bring the proposal back before voters beyond April 22 are tied to bid alternates that include a synthetic turf field and track improvements at the Blue and Gold Stadium. On the other hand, she also said those alternates could be eliminated once the project is approved if construction bids come in higher than expected.

“It’s possible the fields could go, to meet the bids” even if voters approve the project on the first referendum, Ms McClure told The Bee.

Ms McClure reiterated that the ultimate goal of the $41 million renovation project is to relieve overcrowding. The collateral benefit would be to alleviate New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) concerns about overcrowding that has played a role in putting the high school’s accreditation on “warning status.”

“With or without the NEASC report, we would still be asking for this expansion,” Ms McClure said. The board chairman acknowledged that athletic facility improvements are not cited among NEASC recommendations to alleviate the school’s accreditation warning.

A representative from NEASC told The Bee this week that school supporters’ concerns about the school’s accreditation being jeopardized by overcrowding may be overstated.

“In my 20 years at NEASC, no Connecticut school has lost its accreditation because of overcrowding,” said Janet Allison, the deputy director of NEASC.

Discussing the options available if the April 22 referendum on the high school fails, Ms McClure said academic concerns addressed by expanding facilities are top priority, even if they are achieved by postponing or curtailing other facility improvements. But she said if bids come in too high for bid alternates to make up the difference, the entire project may be postponed regardless.

“The entire project may be off if the bids come in too high,” Ms McClure said. “But we are hoping they will come in low, and we will be able to bring this project in under budget with all the alternates.”

The school board chairman said it was important to downplay rumors and correct misinformation circulating in the community that could negatively affect the referendum outcome.

“We think this project stands on its own,” Ms McClure said, reiterating that the core expansion proposal is not dead if the April 22 referendum fails. That statement was echoed by Superintendent Janet Robinson and school Business Manager Ron Bienkowski.

“There’s still a chance…very slim, but it’s possible,” Dr Robinson said of passing a scaled-back proposal in time to get shovels in the ground this July.

Acknowledging it would be “complicated,” Mr Bienkowski said nonetheless, that with cooperation among Board of Finance, Legislative Council, and Board of Selectmen, a revised appropriation request could first come back cutting any or all of the lesser alternates while still protecting the turf and track.

Those alternates include a lightning and surge protection system; a “green” roof” garden; and maintenance-free painted interior block. While the track and turf field is the big ticket alternate, priced at approximately $2.3 million in a recent architect’s report, the surge protection, green roof and painted block alternates add up to $427,000.

“No doubt, it is possible to have other referenda,” Mr Bienkowski said. “We could do anything as long as it is legal, and we have the cooperation of other [boards and the council],” he added.

In the interest of “putting out the truth,” about the high school expansion, Ms McClure said she was “happy” the NEASC deputy director had clarified other points of misinformation circulating through e-mails and in person-to-person advocacy. One of those other points is related to the whether the high school’s accreditation would be put on probation if the April 22 referendum fails.

The NEASC representative said there was “nothing to indicate” the school would be moved from warning status to probation if the expansion referendum failed on its first attempt. “The [NEASC] commission simply asks for reasonable progress [towards addressing accreditation concerns] in a reasonable amount of time,” Ms Allison said. “We never establish a timeline. We know adding space can take time; that is why there are no drop dead dates set for completion.”

She said if NEASC eventually does inform the district it is being considered for accreditation probation — a process that may not even begin until 2010 — the district will be given ample opportunity to appeal by showing cause for why space needs concerns are not being addressed.

The NEASC official also said parents of Newtown High School students should not be worried the current warning status will affect their children’s college admissions.

“In 20 years, nobody has ever brought that up,” she said. “Perhaps probation can affect admissions criteria, but not a warning status.”

Ms Allison said confusion arises because schools occasionally face probation when they fail to offer classes required to qualify students for particular college admissions.

After hearing about options for reducing the project budget if it fails April 22, Legislative Council Chairman William Rodgers said he thought there was a strong possibility at least one or even two additional referenda could be in the offing if the first attempt at passing the proposal was rejected by taxpayers.

“I always believed they could cut the budget and achieve some value engineering, or slice some or all of the bid alternates,” Mr Rodgers said. The council chairman said he expects all the boards involved in the process would meet in a “compressed” timeline to expedite bringing at least one additional referendum back before the June 30 deadline.

“It would be irresponsible not to bring [a scaled down proposal] back if the first referendum fails on April 22,” Mr Rodgers said.