Hartford school plan faces a critical time
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By JOHN WOODROW COX VALLEY NEWS STAFF WRITER - Published: August 17, 2009
HARTFORD — Though the Hartford School Board voted to consolidate district schools last week, the most difficult decisions might still lie ahead.
In the next 90 days, board members will formulate the details of the district overhaul before presenting a proposal to the town, essentially establishing a self-imposed three-month clock on themselves to reach a conclusion.
"We wanted to be able to have a clear length of time to develop our presentation back to the community," school board member Kevin Christie said. "If we didn't have an endgame, this could go on forever." Under the preferred plan the school board presented to Hartford residents at meetings earlier this year, White River School and Hartford Memorial Middle School would be closed, and a new pre-K through second-grade school would be constructed adjacent to the high school.
That reconfiguration would send grades 3-5 to Ottauquechee School and grades 6-8 to Dothan Brook School. Currently, Ottauquechee, White River and Dothan Brook all house grades K-5. The initial proposal, developers estimated, would have cost more than $70 million. Though officials approved the new grade alignments, they've yet to determine how much the project will cost or the stages of construction, which schools students will attend and which schools, if any, will close, among other specifics. They'll also discuss ways to use the middle school rather than close it. "What we've agreed on is there is a need for consolidation," Christie said. "We haven't finalized what that looks like."
Much of the final cost will depend on what percentage of the capital improvements qualifies for federal stimulus money and how much of the consolidation expenditures the state will reimburse. State aid for consolidation projects is slated to end by 2011.
In the next 90 days, officials will also try to decide on the construction timeline and if they'll request funding from taxpayers in phases or all at once.
Throughout the process, Superintendent Don LaPlante and school board members maintained that consolidation would improve education and save taxpayers money in the long run. Under the original proposal, LaPlante estimated that the savings could one day range from $500,000 to $700,000 a year.
Constructing a new high school is not part of the district plan, though Wendy Windsor, the district's communications director, said it did need extensive refurbishing, including new wiring and plumbing.
Much of the school board's upcoming discussion, she said, will center on questions posed and objections raised by residents at community forums over the last several months.
"The School Board takes very seriously the issues that were raised in the public meetings," she said, "and that's why they haven't just gone ahead and made a decision."
How students would be transported, the loss of "neighborhood" elementary schools and whether kindergarteners should attend classes on the same campus as high-schoolers were among the top issues residents raised at the community forums.
Transportation will be among the questions officials try to answer in the next three months, board Chairman Tim Fariel said. While Fariel said he understands parents' concerns over their elementary-aged students no longer attending neighborhood schools, he noted that the change to one locale would be positive for at least two reasons.
First, students would all receive an equitable education.
Second, they could identify earlier in their education with being a "Hartford student" rather than a village or neighborhood student. "I want you to consider yourself a Hartford kid with a great education," he said. "We want to ensure people that that sense of belonging will be enhanced."
Also, based on studies and data officials have collected from other areas, Fariel said he didn't believe people should be concerned with kindergartners and high-schoolers attending classes on one campus. At a meeting in January, LaPlante said, the younger students wouldn't mix with the teenagers or have access to the high school parking lots or the surrounding traffic areas.
If officials haven't finalized a plan in 90 days, Fariel said, the timeline could be extended, though he's confident the board can reach a decision acceptable to most voters in that time.
"Everybody's not going to jump on the boat and row with you," he said. "At the end of the day, you have to be able to say, 'This is what we believe is best for our district.'"
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