By Jarret Liotta
The idea that Coleytown Middle School (CMS) may not be ready to open for August 2020, had Board of Education (BOE) members Monday night wondering what they might have done — or could still do — differently.
Don O’Day, chair of the Coleytown Middle School Building Committee, reports on the latest estimates. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Jarret Liotta for WestportNow.com
“The process has been held hostage by this 2020 date,” said BOE member Neil Phillips.
He like others said the latest news of an expanded work scope — and potentially longer timeline — for CMS are in sync with news from the original consultant, KG & D, which suggested a two- to five-year project and a minimum cost of $25 million.
“Everything that’s come back … is not much different,” he said, noting the vote to make Bedford Middle School (BMS) a townwide middle school was based on it being a one-year interim plan.
But Donald O’Day, chairman of the CMS Building Committee, sought to assure BOE members that there were still many reasons to believe CMS could be safely habitable by the start of the 2020-21 school year.
How they would get there, however, he said still required more research of options, including staging parts of the project while students are in attendance, or possibly adding more-costly double shifts to get the work done faster.
“By no means are we raising the white flag,” O Day said.
“The goal is still 2020 … but we’ve been told that everything will not likely be done,” he said.
In particular, the need has been found to do recladding of the entire shell of the school.
“That certainly wasn’t in the scope when we first started,” O’Day said of the cladding, noting he was as disappointed by the news as anyone.
Cladding is used to provide a degree of thermal insulation and weather resistance, and to improve the appearance of buildings.
This issue of seepage is especially bad near windows at the building, and these will all have to be custom replaced, costing more time, O’Day said. The decision was also made to get an entirely new HVAC system, rather than try to salvage the old one.
“We will not have the numbers for the new schedule until June 12 … We’re going to know a lot more in about a week and a half,” he said.
“It can still open in 2020, and that’s what we’re working toward,” he said, but adding that time was not their friend in this situation. He said the schedule still demanded that the funding bodies approve the expenditure by July 16.
“I said publicly many times that I never really had confidence in this timeline,” said BOE member Candice Savin, calling the news “almost identical” to what KG & D originally said.
She stated she did not think that the BOE — or the town — was considering all its options, including taking the CMS money and putting it toward an addition at BMS, or turning CMS into a dedicated schools for all students in grades five and six throughout town.
“I’m not sure we have enough kids for two middle schools in this town,” she said.
“We were put into a time box,” said BOE Chairman Mark Mathias.
“What would we do if we didn’t have that time box? … That’s kind of a big question mark that I’ve always had,” he said.
BOE Vice Chair Jeannie Smith said they needed to carve out time to get all the stakeholders together in one place, in particular the BOE, Board of Finance, and Representative Town Meeting members, in order to all be on the same page.
