High School Space Needs Committee Recommends Expanding School On Site

By Susan Coney

The Newtown High School Space Needs Committee chose one of the options presented Monday night by the consulting firm of Fletcher Thompson Architecture, Engineering and Interior Design as the best plan to use as a guideline for an on-site expansion to the existing high school.

After an extensive presentation, the committee favored a plan designated as “Option C,” but chose to think the plan over until their next scheduled meeting on November 9 before making a formal recommendation.

With high school enrollment figures reported at 1,687 as of October 1, the high school is presently over capacity by 87 students; up 100 students from a year ago.

The charge of the Space Needs Committee is to act in an advisory capacity to provide the Board of Education with a written recommendation of how to best accommodate the space needs of the students attending Newtown High School.

At the October 24 meeting, the committee listened to a presentation given by Assistant Superintendent Alice Jackson who began by explaining to the committee that the school’s space problems are reaching almost crisis proportions. “The cafeteria is so overcrowded it is uncomfortable, the halls are gridlocked. You would have to come to the school during period switches to realize it is a maze as the students try to get things out of their lockers and make their way to class,” she stressed.

Ms Jackson has been working diligently with a subcommittee of parents, teachers, and administrators to carefully examine the problems currently being encountered by the growth in the student population. She and the subcommittee have put forth recommendations of ways in which to help alleviate the overcrowding and provide students with the opportunity to receive optimal educational services.

The educational specifications recommended by the subcommittee call for the creation of an area of approximately 16 classrooms where the core academic courses for freshmen would be taught. This “freshman house” would allow for a smaller school feel for these students coming into the high school.

Included in the freshman house would be a small cafetorium and “servery” that would seat 166 students. The freshmen would work on a three-wave lunch schedule. Food would be prepared in the existing kitchen and brought to this area for serving. The cafetorium would relieve the overcrowding in the main cafeteria and would also provide a suitable space for small performances, meetings of several classes together, and a type of all-purpose room atmosphere.

With the addition of a freshman house, classrooms in the original portion of the building that were previously used to teach freshmen students would be freed up for other uses.

The subcommittee also proposed the expansion of the nurses’ office to accommodate the growing population of the school and requested the addition of two science laboratories in the existing building and the addition of more library space. Renovations and expansions are necessary to increase the space needed for popular classes such as the culinary arts program, graphic arts, video production, as well as others that have high enrollment and insufficient space, limiting the number of students who could enroll in those courses.

After Ms Jackson provided the Space Needs Committee with her subcommittee’s recommendations, Joe Costa from Fletcher Thompson provided a PowerPoint presentation on several expansion options that could help to alleviate the overcrowded conditions at the school.

Mr Costa stressed that the program goals were to add space to accommodate increased enrollment to meet the needs of 1,900 students. Each option presented provided approximately 48,000 additional square feet and some renovation.

Fletcher Thompson provided drawings and preliminary figures for three possible expansion options, all to be done at the existing high school location. Option C, which was the plan favored later that evening by the Space Needs Committee, sets the footprint for the addition to be placed at the back of the existing high school on the west side of the building. It would provide the town with a three-story freshman house addition with connections to the main building.

Preliminary budget costs using unit pricing would place the cost for Option C at $29,754,000. Representatives from Fletcher Thompson found Option C advantageous because construction would take place at the back portion of the building and would be relatively undisruptive to the students as well as the educational process.

Unfortunately, the site has a large slope of rock that would most likely require blasting to excavate and the additional problem of finding another location on the school site in which to place the excess fill, as required by the town zoning regulations. Space Needs Committee member Joe Borst commented, “I think you would be blasting the heck out of that hill. It will be costly. You have neighbors and aquifers to consider.” Representative Joe Costa reassured the committee that the blasting is done under very controlled guidelines and that no one would be allowed in the school when the blasting would be taking place.

Other Options

The other plans, Options D-1 and D-2 were very similar to one another. In these plans the freshman house addition would be placed on the north side of the existing building next to the present cafeteria. The addition would be connected in two areas to the main building. Option D-1 provided parking underneath on the ground level and Option D-2 did not. The preliminary cost for Option D-1 is $27,980,000 and for Option D-2 $27,233,000.

Space Needs Committee members concluded Option C would provide a better flow when connecting with the main building; it also would be the least disruptive during the construction process and offered the most.

Interim high school principal Pat Llodra stated she was in favor of Option C as the best plan available from an educational aspect. She said it allowed for better flow of the students in passing from class to class and provided the freshmen students with access to more of the main building making it a less isolating choice than Options D-1 and D-2.

Fletcher Thompson recommended the construction of an additional parking lot to be located along Wasserman Way next to Oakview field. The cost under Option C for the parking lot would be an additional $229,500 because the hope is that excess fill taken out of the slope for the addition onto the high school could be brought over and be used in the construction of the new parking facility and ball field. Cost for Options D-1 and D-2 would be $1,143,000 for the construction of an additional parking lot and ball field to be placed in the same location at Wasserman Way. The cost increase for these options are due to the need to purchase additional fill to complete the parking lot project. A six-to-seven-foot-wide, lighted walkway would be built to connect that parking lot to the existing school complex.

Construction time for all building would be set at approximately 33 months to completion. Mr Costa stated, “We have to keep the building safe and completely operational during construction so that prolongs it a bit.”

School Superintendent Evan Pitkoff and Board of Education member Tom Gissen emphasized that Options C, D-1 and D-2 just add space and do not account for any significant renovations to the existing buildings, which they said are needed to offer students more electives as well as other needs.

Previously more costly Options A, B, and B- reduced, which encompassed much more of what the educational specification subcommittee headed by Ms Jackson was looking for in the high school expansion, were not presented to the Space Needs Committee. Mr Costa said that Option B, which would provide an addition of a freshman house as well as many renovations necessary in the existing building, would cost $36 million; a good portion of that would, however, be reimbursable by the state so that it would be a cost of $23 million to the town.

Toward the end of the meeting discussion was held about the possibility of considering building a new high school instead of continuing to expand to the present facility.

Committee member Bill Furrier stated that he would agree to Option C but pressed the town to consider the long-term growth of Newtown as well as the schools. He inquired what it would cost to build a new school. “Perhaps, maybe the thing to do is to look at our school space needs and our community space needs. Eventually we will just be looking at a revolving door of expansions. We need to look at the possibility of a new high school,” he said.

Fellow member Earl Gordon agreed, saying, “My fear is that we have a bandage solution to build an addition to cover 300 extra kids. And we may have an albatross around our neck when it is outgrown.”

In responding to the question of what it would cost to construct a new high school today Mr Costa told the group that his firm had been involved in building New Milford High School, which was completed in 2001 at a cost of $48 million. He said that today he would easily consider the cost of building a new high school in Newtown to be in the ballpark of $100 million.