Town Council, Board of Education Hold Joint Meeting On High School Consolidation

Members of the Enfield Town Council and Board of Education gathered Thursday at Town Hall to discuss the upcoming high school consolidation.

Plans call for the consolidation of Fermi and Enfield High Schools to begin in 2014, and to be completed in 2016. At Thursday's meeting, Superintendent of Schools John Gallacher said, "The district has been dropping about 200 students a year for the last four or five years."

On Jan. 10, the school board officially chose the Enfield High School location as the site of the combined high school. The 51-year-old building will require renovation to bring it up to state requirements, including updating the electrical system and science labs.

The Town Council plans to place a referendum question about funding the Enfield High School renovations on the November ballot. The council will adopt the referendum question by July, Town Manager Matt Coppler said.

If the referendum passes, work can start on July 1, 2014 to be eligible for state reimbursement. "Typically, Enfield has been in the 62 to 70 percent reimbursement range," Gallacher said.

Coppler said 29 firms have applied to do architectural services for the project.

Mayor Scott Kaupin said a minimum of three Community Conversations about the referendum are being planned. Those meetings are likely to take place in March, May and prior to the Town Council adoption of the question, he said.

"We need to show the public that this will save dollars," Councilwoman Carol Hall said.

Considerable discussion was held about possible reuse of the Fermi building. Coppler said about 70,000 square feet of usable space (excluding the cafeteria, gymnasium and auditorium) could be used for a new library and community center.

"Other communities are spending $15 to $20 million for a 70,000 square foot library," Coppler said. "Renovating Fermi will not cost nearly that much."

Board of Education Chairman Tim Neville rejected the notion that the existing middle school be relocated to the Fermi building.

"Fermi was designed as a high school," he said. "You can't just close a building and move into another. You need to have the structure fit the form of what you're putting in there. It's not as simple as transplanting people."

Neville said the design of the current middle school lends itself to better adult supervision of students, whereas the three-floor setup at Fermi would make that extremely difficult. Additionally, the town would owe the state $1.2 million in bonding reimbursement if the Kennedy building was no longer used as a school, whereas the Fermi site has no outstanding monies, he said.

Coppler said the town currently leases space in the South Road Plaza for the Enfield Child Development Center. That lease costs $136,000 annually, and the town manager suggested the center could possibly move into the current library location on Middle Road should the library be moved to Fermi.

The video of the entire meeting is available here.