A Critical Vote On The

High School Expansion

To the Editor:

We will be voting on the $2.75 million for the design phase of the high school expansion/renovation project on Tuesday — a day after the last day of school.

We encourage all Newtown voters to vote Yes for this project so that our fifth graders can be the first group of children to attend a high school that is not overcrowded. We urge all voters who may be out of town that day to complete the absentee ballot at the town clerk’s office.

Passage is critical as further delay in approving this project will result in more expensive project costs, decreased state reimbursement as our wealth rank increases, and, most importantly, the high school will remain overcrowded.

You may have read in the minutes from the last Legislative Council meeting and in The Newtown Bee that some town leaders have suggested looking at a year-round high school schedule to alleviate overcrowding. The first high school expansion was completed by 1997-1998 and it cost the town $28 million. We outgrew this expansion by 2004. The town has been contemplating this second expansion project since 1999 and here we are eight years later with the same problem and no approved solution. The problem of overcrowding is not going away despite the wishful thinking of some town leaders.

We recognized the short-term approaches of dealing with the high school overcrowding issues. A year and a half ago, WeCAN was created and encouraged our town leaders to convene a working group to establish a long-term solution for the space needs of the schools and the town. We encouraged the town leaders to explore how a construction of a new high school at Fairfield Hills might impact the current FFH master plan and the town’s Plan of Conservation and Development, and what changes might be warranted to those planning documents.

It is very unfortunate that the town was not able to establish a formal working group to identify a true long-term approach to educational space needs before these decisions were made. Now, with more pressure from growing enrollment, NEASC warning status, and with significant cost escalations if the high school expansion is delayed, we believe it is in the best interest for us to expediently approve this expansion project. Our students should not be further punished by a town that continues to resist creating a long-term vision and a plan for our town and school needs.

We need everyone to come out and vote Yes so we can get this approved on the first referendum. The superintendent of schools reported that the NEASC organization has stated that if we deviate from the timeline of this expansion project, our high school is at risk to be put on probation. It is our belief that if this is defeated, we go back to square one. That is something we do not believe we can afford to do as a community.

Po Murray

Gary Davis

Members of WeCAN

Charter Ridge Drive, Sandy Hook                                  June 20, 2007