By Jarret Liotta
With many dismayed Long Lots School (LLS) parents voicing concern about potential overcrowding next year if grade six moves to elementary schools, the Board of Education (BOE) Monday night formally charged its Coleytown Middle School (CMS) Task Force and set it in motion.
CMS Task Force members and Joe Fuller (at microphone), head of the town’s Maintenance Study Committee, at the BOE meeting . (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Jarret Liotta for WestportNow.com
Following unanimous appointment by the BOE, task force members requested public notice for a CMS walk-through on Wednesday at 8 a.m. Superintendent of Schools Colleen Palmer said her office would have a notice posted today.
The task force is being asked to “evaluate and describe the cost and efficiency of safely opening Coleytown Middle School in whole or in part” by next year, with a charge to report findings to the BOE by the end of January.
“We support the safe reconditioning of Coleytown Middle School by September,” LLS parent Lisa Waller told the BOE, echoing the urgency of several LLS parents who worry that the K-6 model will impede life at their school given space constraints.
The BOE also heard a timeline from a consultant charged with helping the district get 13 portable classrooms, which are needed to make the K-6 plan operational.
Paul Drummy, project manager with Capitol Region Education Council, said he was confident the state would reimburse the costs given the emergency closing of CMS, and that the portables could be online by August — just in time for the 2019-20 school year.
“The timelines look awful tight here and I don’t see a lot of room for error,” said LLS parent Alan Rockwell.
Drummy said he would return to the BOE in two weeks with more information, also pledging to appear at the BOE Finance and Facilities Committee meeting on Jan. 16 for an update.
The BOE, meanwhile, appointed the seven-member CMS Task Force, including five members of the town’s Maintenance Study Committee (MSC).
They are: Russ Blair, a former marine engineer and veteran member of various town maintenance and building panels; Jay Keenan, an architect and District 2 member of the Representative Town Meeting; Joseph Renzulli, an electrical engineer; Lois Roberts, a mechanical engineer, and Vanessa Valadares, civil engineer, who also served on the BOE’s Community Advisory Committee.
BOE Chairman Mark Mathias also put forward the names of Ward French, a local builder, and Srikanth Puttagunta, a mechanical engineer, who were approved to serve.
BOE Vice Chair Jeannie Smith raised the question of whether more expertise might be needed on the task force.
“Maybe it’s considerable to have somebody with an air quality background,” she said.
MSC Chairman Joe Fuller, whom First Selectman Jim Marpe said would be unable to serve on the task force but was present at the BOE meeting to answer questions, said both he and Valadares worked regularly with a firm called Hygenix, based in Norwalk, with which he said they would consult.
The question was also raised about whether the charge to the task force — which speaks directly to investigating the viability of reopening in time for the 2019-20 school year — should look into the building’s future in perpetuity.
“I don’t want to make a distraction that might take two or three days out of a very tight deadline,” Mathias said in opposing the idea.
“I want them focused on the question we need answered in the very short term,” he said.
In reference to the task force determining whether conditions at CMS would be “normal” regarding health and safety, another LLS parent raised the question of whether there was parity across the district in terms of the definition of “normal.”
“Do these conditions actually exist at all the schools in town?” Liz Heyer said.
“We do all know that there’s mold at Long Lots,” she said.
“Are we holding all our other schools to those same standards,” she said, “and what are those standards?”
