Council Approves Archictectural Review For Middle School Construction

The Town Council approved the Wednesday to hire an architect to determine possible options for a middle school that would include sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

The recommendation came from the Board of Education in an effort to comply with the national educational reforms. Superintendent of Schools Michael Graner said that academic standards will be elevated to such a degree that full-day kindergarten and content-certified instruction beginning in the sixth grade are necessary steps for the school district to remain competitive and attractive.

“The curriculum is becoming far more rigorous and the instructional needs are becoming much more difficult for teachers,” said Graner. “We believe in order to remain competitive we need to have teachers who are certified and content-specific (for sixth graders)”

Want to say you heard it first? Get local news and coverage delivered right to your inbox or smartphone everyday with our free newsletter. Simple, fast sign-up here.

Currently sixth graders are taught by general education teachers in elementary school. Graner said that under the new national standards, sixth graders will be required to do algebra, for example, which would require the expertise of a math certified teacher rather than a general education teacher.

Town councilors were not eager to endorse an architectural review that excluded other options and inquired about the combined cost of adding a wing and possible renovations to the middle school or building a whole new middle school.

“We don’t have great options. I think this is the modest option,” said Graner of building a wing only.

Graner said if the wing can’t be done or is found to be too expensive, the school board will be back on square one.

Graner said he anticipates an addition to the middle school would be approximately 25,000 square feet and would allow the district to close an elementary school that’s about 47,000 square feet. Early and rough cost estimates for the wing only come to $7.5 million with the town bonding $3 million in 2014.

And, he said, moving the sixth graders to middle school would open up space to offer full-day kindergarten.

“There’s huge educational value in building a wing,” said Graner. “If we did that and nothing else, I’d be happy. Just getting the wing would be a huge step forward to our schools.”

After further discussion with councilors, Graner expanded the scope of the request to include building a whole new middle school.

"That's been one of my fears," said councilor Kevin Dombrowski. "Is that we looked at one option and that's all we're looking for. We want to look at this study and all the options and try to determine the best one for the town."

The motion to approve the school board's request passed 7-0.