By Jarret Liotta
Issues around the Coleytown Middle School (CMS) crisis dominated Monday night’s Board of Education meeting, where Superintendent of Schools Colleen Palmer gave a formal presentation of the options her administration has proposed for next school year.
Bedford Middle School principal Adam Rosen and Coleytown Middle School principal Kris Szabo address the Board of Education. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Jarret Liotta for WestportNow.com
Palmer drew laughs when she said, “Every parent hates at least a few of these … because I received a lot of emails of what parents hate.”
A dozen options are under consideration, including relocating grades to different schools, consolidating middle schools, and finding a new building to which one grade or another of students can be relocated.
One idea that was not put forward but has gained traction privately among some parents is constructing an addition on Bedford Middle School (BMS) and turning it into a townwide middle school.
The board approved the appointment of five new members to the Community Advisory Committee (CAC, formerly the Community Advisory Group), which is striving to make viable recommendations to the board and administration as soon as possible. Its next meeting will be Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
They include Kevin Cazzetta, principal at Greens Farms Elementary School, Kerryn Griffin, program director at Learning Community Day School, parent and special education advocate Rosie Curtis, Sue Calger, former PTA co-president, and Sue Rubin, former Staples High School PTA co-president.
Chairman Mark Mathias said there were 115 other people who had expressed interest, some of whom he said may later be asked to get involved with CAC subcommittees.
Though they shared some thoughts of the options as they currently stand, consensus among board members was to withhold official judgment and instead let the CAC make its determinations.
“To me there are a couple that are nonstarters,” said member Candace Savin, including splitting the schedule at BMS or maintaining the current structure for an additional year.
“I’m wondering if it’s helpful to eliminate anything up front,” she said.
Palmer, likewise, expressed some preferences Sunday evening at the first CAC meeting, but did not want to share more specifics at this point.
She only repeated her belief that transition was easier for younger students, while education facilities were harder to equip for higher grade levels.
“Preschool is probably the easiest part of a district to relocate,” she said.
Member Vic Muktavaram said he saw all the options as involving a “trade-off between parity and disruption.”
“Especially as we are asking the community to come together,” he said, “parity has to be right up there.”
He also raised the question of whether there could be more flexibility with the timeline.
If so, new options that more directly link to future educational plans — such as the creation of a grade five and six school, as was mentioned by one parent — could then be part of the discussion.
Palmer — who stated she did not think it was the best time to implement new, far-reaching educational directions amid this crisis — said her administration is already six weeks behind its budget preparation.
She said she has already hired some part-time help in some areas and will probably get more to address workload issues where the budget is concerned.
“We are so far behind on our budget preparation … Everyone has been working full time on this,” she said, referring to the CMS issue.
At this time the board is scheduled to meet with the Board of Finance for preliminary budget discussions on Dec. 3, though Palmer noted there was at least some fluidity in the schedule.
For all intents and purposes Palmer laid to rest the idea that CMS could be usable for this school year — something some parents still do not entirely accept.
“You cannot create a space that you can assure is safe for all your students,” she said.
She explained that ongoing water incursion — coupled with costly and expansive work needed to treat the air — made it something virtually impossible to get completed before June.
Concerns were expressed over a consultant report received from Turner Building Science & Design, LLC, of Lyndonville, Vermont, which at least one member of the public deemed incomplete, as well as slow in coming.
“I don’t know what we paid these guys for this report, but there really isn’t any data here,” said Kristin Schneeman, Representative Town Meeting (RTM) member from District 9.
Palmer said the deal was going to be revisited by her administration, noting the company said it had personnel issues that caused the report to be delayed.
An update was given on the portable classrooms at BMS, which are still scheduled for mid-January.
“There’s nothing at this time that would lead me to change the timeline,” said Elio Longo, chief financial officer.
The board also heard a presentation from the two middle school principals — Kris Szabo of CMS and Adam Rosen of BMS.
They outlined various details of how they are striving to put out fires as they arise, with things continuing to run better each day given the circumstances.
“We keep looking at the issues and how we can solve them,” Rosen said.
He said there were going to remain trade-offs, such as unequal amounts of time for some students in certain areas, such as “slight, inconsistent amounts of minutes” for some students in physical education (PE) or Spanish.
One parent, Melissa Liguori, countered that while her son was getting an additional 57 minutes of PE each week, his peers were receiving 75 minutes of reading time each week that he was not getting.
She said he was also getting a shorter language period, which is putting pressure on him because the teacher is prompting the students to cover more ground independently.
“It’s working for most kids,” Rosen said, “and wherever we have issues we want to hear about them and address them.”
