By James Lomuscio
Westport’s Board of Education tonight found an architect’s feasibility study to expand Staples High School by 36,320-square feet to the tune of $21.2 million to be more than they had expected.
An artist’s rendition of a recommended Staples High School expansion module. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Fuller D’Angelo P.C. graphic
Members seemed surprised by the proposal. They said they thought the $20,000 study they had commissioned would address different ways to accommodate Staples’ swelling student population that is 100 students over capacity this fall—not full blown plans for a new building with a hefty price tag.
“The enrollment is the driver, and I’m just afraid that it’s two steps further than where we are now,” said board member Karen Klein.
“We need to fully vet all the other choices,” she added, saying that things, such as modular classrooms, larger class size and course tradeoffs, should be part of the study, even though she is not in favor of them. “We need to do our due diligence before we get to that point.”
Other board members agreed, some saying they had no input in discussions with staff members consulted on the study.
Michael Gordon, school board chairman, said, “we need to know with certainty” where Staples’ demographics are headed.
The current building was designed for 1,800 students even though the administration had pushed for a building with a 2,000 capacity but had to cut back for budgetary reasons, Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon said.
Former Board of Education Chair Steve Halstead, speaking during public input, said he served on the board during deliberations about the 2005 renovation and agreed that the original target was for 2,000 students.
According to Landon, this year’s Staples enrollment was about 1,900, and that the school has been overcapacity for several years.
Joe Fuller, principal of the Elmsford, N.Y.-based architects Fuller D’Angelo P.C., a Westport resident and a Staples graduate, presented the study that the school board had commissioned in May. Fuller D’Angelo is the same firm hired for the expansion of the 1958-built school transformed to 465,000 square feet in 2005 at a cost of $73 million.
Fuller focused on the school administration’s favored and his firm’s recommended Concept B, which would add 36,320-square feet to the current building.
It includes 15 new classrooms for math, languages, computer engineering, robotics, health and physical education, lectures, dance, conference rooms, teacher work rooms, special education and cafeteria expansion, as well as infrastructure upgrades.
The centerpiece would be a two-story technology and science center with “all of the latest and greatest in computer technology.”
“We hope to bring a new science center to Staples to keep the school at the forefront,” he said, adding that the expansion would be driven by programmatic as well as population demands.
Landon last week said that the project’s cost of $21.2 million would be offset by about $2 million in state grants, costing the town about $19 million.
Fuller’s report presented to the board tonight also quotes Landon’s projections that “Staples High School will continue in the 1900 student population range for at least the next six years.”
“Currently, when you look at our programs needs and projections and the high growth/stability rate of our student population rate at Staples, it is clear than an expansion for Staples is a vital necessity if we are to continue to prepare Westport’s children for the 21st century and beyond,” Landon is quoted in the report.
School board member Paul Block, though he described Fuller’s report as “exceptional and beautiful,” took issue with projected student population gains.
“It’s difficult to support with only four years of projected enrollments,” he said, adding that Staples could be back at 1,800 students in 2023, consistent with the current decline at the elementary level.
“I feel we are starting with step three or four when we should be going back to step one or two,” said board member Brett Aronow. “I want to be very cautions and to approach this from every perspective. It’s a huge dollar sign.”
Board member Mark Mathias, who began by calling Fuller’s plan “sweet,” quipping that he would want to enroll in such a school because of the planned science center, agreed that further demographic studies were required. He also noted the cost.
“Its’ too early to green light this thing,” Mathias said. “I really like this, but there are other needs in the community.” He said the board should decide whether needed upgrades to other schools should give way to a Staples expansion.
Gordon said that board’s next steps would be to meet with the school system’s demographer, examine Staples’ space utilization and to explore future programming needs with academic departments.
In other matters, the school board heard a presentation from representatives of the superintendent search firm Hazard, Young & Attea.
The company’s representatives described the firm as the nation’s oldest superintendent search group that has conducted 1,000 such searches nationwide over the past 27 years. They said the process would consist of three parts: recruitment, selection and appointment.
The presentation came as a community survey to help discern what Westporters want in a new school superintendent was made available today at http://www.ecrasurvey.com/westport or via a link from the Westport Public Schools’ home page. The survey will remain open until Sept. 18. Results are scheduled to be presented to the board on Oct. 5
The school board scheduled its first community forum on the search to replace Landon, who is retiring after 17 years at the end of the 2015-16 academic year, for Tuesday, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. in the Saugatuck Elementary School auditorium.
The school board also heard a report tonight from Elio Longo, school business administrator, on the completion of continuing security measures made over the summer.
They include the installation of safety bollards, posts to prevent vehicles from crashing into buildings, at five schools, including Staples.
Also installed were new loudspeakers, a new system-wide communication system, and more fencing to keep out intruders and add to student safety.
It’s hard to understand how we could pay $20,000 of taxpayer money and not know what the expectations were? I truly appreciate the BofE who donate their time, but this seems not to add up. All of a sudden we get a report that we were not looking for?
By the way, if you read the report, the projected Staples population the last few years are not calculated. They are listed as Landon numbers. Do we want to base student population on his guesstimates?
Again, I truly thank the BofE members for their work, but this story seems to bring more questions and not enough answers.