Expansions Get Green Light

A version of this story appears in TheDailyNorwalk.com.

Five Norwalk elementary schools moved one step closer to building expansions to ease their overcrowding. On Tuesday evening, the Board of Education voted 8-1 in favor of the $4 million 2011-12 capital budget request. The budget is part of a larger approximately $30 million five-year plan that would expand Cranbury, Rowayton, Naramake, Jefferson and Columbus. The plan also includes funds to install air conditioning in all the elementary schools, upgrade technology, repair asphalt and concrete and bring other needed infrastructure improvements to the schools.

The initial $4.5 million approved by the board will begin the planning and design phase of construction at Naramake, Cranbury and Rowatyon. Actual groundbreaking at the schools wouldn’t occur until 2012-13. “Each year the budget will be brought back to the board,” said Dan Cook, the districts interim Chief Operating Officer. “Each year we will be adjusting the budget based on the previous year.”
Steve Colarossi, BOE finance committee chair, emphasized that the was “based on a study conducted by experts.” Board member Glenn Iannaccone reminded the board that Rowayton doesn’t have an auditorium that is large enough to accommodate the entire school.

BOE Chair Jack Chiaramonte described the expansion and repairs as necessary “This plan reprioritizes our needs. These are things we have to do.”

The lone dissenter, BOE member Sue Haynie, questioned the timing of the capital request. She discussed the poor state of the economy and conflicting enrollment trends in the city. District schools are “overused and underused”, she said. Haynie spoke of the possibility of a new charter school in South Norwalk the state’s inability to provide capital reimbursement. She also expressed dismay that Jefferson “has been waiting a long time.”

About the decision to delay Jefferson’s expansion plans a year, Colarossi said, “We need to spend the next year looking closely at the best possible model for Jefferson.” Currently, the school is both a magnet and neighborhood school.

Mayor Moccia, an ex-officio BOE member, addressed the fact that the state may not be in position to provide its typical 33 percent reimbursement on school construction projects which could change the City’s ability to fund the project. Nevertheless, the Mayor said, “We can’t stop the planning. We can always readjust.”

Board member Jodi Bishop-Pullan said, " It is the job of the BOE to make sure that our schools have adequate facilities. We need to move forwards with this.”

Haynie stated, “Next year, we could ask deeper questions.” She said that the current plan was “a plan in isolation, not aligned to a district vision.”