Date: Fri 09-Apr-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

edink-Fairfield-Hills-school

Full Text:

ED INK: The 5/6 School Decision Must Wait

The Board of Education made its case for a new school for grades five and six

before the Legislative Council this week, and the enrollment statistics

underlying the school board's advocacy of the new $25.8 million facility are

compelling. The school district is expecting the addition of 239 new students

in the system in the coming year, and enrollment projections don't show the

growing school population leveling off any time soon.

Three weeks ago, Superintendent of Schools John Reed painted a grim picture of

the consequences of not building the so-called "5/6 school": split morning and

afternoon school sessions; a school year extended by 27 days; lost

extra-curricular activities; and increased annual costs for teachers'

salaries, transportation, and portable classroom space. From this scenario, it

should be clear to the council and taxpayers that the town will have to

respond with some plan to create new classroom space. The 5/6 school concept

appears to be a reasonable solution.

Having accepted that concept in principle, however, we should not

automatically rush into a $25.8 million building project. Within the next

three months, Newtown will have to make a decision whether or not it should

purchase the 186-acre core campus of the former Fairfield Hills state mental

hospital. Even the most enthusiastic advocates of the Fairfield Hills purchase

admit that the town's need for additional space for offices and other town

functions won't even come close to filling the million square feet in enclosed

space in the buildings at Fairfield Hills. Many of the buildings would have to

be torn down for the town to avoid significant maintenance and liability costs

year after year.

Is one of the buildings at Fairfield Hills suitable for a new school? The

architectural firm Kaestle Boos Associates of New Britain, which wants to

design the new school, has already ruled out the conversion of Watertown Hall,

which the state has conveyed to the town. The architects concluded that the

building is not structurally suited to be a school. But what about one of the

other buildings at Fairfield Hills?

A figure of $20 million for the property purchase and clean-up of toxic

hazards at Fairfield Hills has been put into play by First Selectman Herb

Rosenthal for the purposes of discussion. That figure is conservative and

could drop significantly pending negotiations with the private firm that the

state eventually selects for the possible development and marketing of the

Fairfield Hills property. Once the environmental and demolition costs are

known and an analysis of the economic impact of private development of

Fairfield Hills is done, the best choice for Newtown may indeed be to purchase

the 186-acre property.

If that happens, we certainly don't want to see the spectacle of the town

constructing a $25.8 million school building to gain classroom space just a

brick's throw away from a site where it is spending millions more to tear down

buildings with acres of space in them. The selectmen, the Legislative Council,

and the town as a whole must view the big picture at this point and make the

big decisions first. That means putting off any action on the new 5/6 school

until a final decision is made on the purchase of Fairfield Hills.