Grove School Continues To Expand Facilities; New Welcome Center Nearly Complete, New 10,800-Square-Foot Athletic Facility Underway (With Video)

The Grove School on Copse Road, a family-run therapeutic boarding school for adolescents with social, emotional, and learning challenges, recently broke ground on a 10,800-square-foot athletic facility that will include a regulation-sized basketball court, a mezzanine and a fitness training room.

The school also is planning to add a 3,000-square-foot maintenance building that will include storage and a large workshop, school officials said. A new welcome center is just about finished. The 550-square-foot Cape-style building will house the Administrators On Duty, and will include a small private meeting room.

The welcome center, made mostly of glass with three large bump-out bay windows and a cathedral ceiling, will allow the Administrators On Duty to survey key portions of the campus, thereby improving oversight of the students while they are in school and, after school, engaged in recreational activites on campus, said Richard L. Chorney, Grove School president and CEO.

In May of 2010, the school opened the Alice Chorney Education Center, a large building at the heart of the campus which houses classrooms, offices, conference rooms, and a media center. The building is named for Richard Chorney's mother, who was a special education teacher.

Chorney said there are currently about 105 residential students on campus and 11 day students, with a capacity of about 21 day students. He said there are no plans to add any more capacity for students at this time, but rather to improve existing facilities for the students who are there.

"We can't expand our residential program until we build more dorms," he said. "And that is at the end of the list. We want to make sure we can take good care of the kids we have. We don't want to crowd more people in before we improve what we're doing now."

Kelly Webster, associate director of Grove School, said the school intends to stay independently operated, with a small capacity.

Chorney agreed. "We're not ready to go big time, we can have a bigger impact with a small place," he said. Chorney said the construction is being funded by "savings, tuition, and loans."

Chorney, Webster, and Chorney's son, Peter J. Chorney, who is executive director of the Grove School, said that the new buildings, and improvements made to the existing facilities, were done with the concept of "synesthesia" in mind.

Chorney said synesthesia is "a blending of the senses, that stimulates the mind and contributes to the development of self esteem." He described it as a kind of "design principle."

"The place and your surroundings influence your behavior," he said. "The nicer the place is, the better the students behave. If we didn't have a good program, it wouldn't make a difference, but with a good program, the surroundings can make a difference."

Other upcoming construction projects include expanding and remodeling the art studio, and renovating dorms on campus, Chorney said.

According to the school's website, the Grove School was founded by Dr. J. Perlman in 1934. Dr. J. Sanford Davis was Executive Director from 1955 to 1986. Richard Chorney became the Executive Director in 1986 and then President and CEO in 2000. Peter Chorney took over as Executive Director in 2000. The Grove School is approved by the Connecticut State Department of Education and licensed by the Connecticut Department of Children and Families.