Part 1: Overcrowding in the Windham School District

If you've been living in an informational vacuum for the past few months, you've missed a couple of noteworthy items.

The first is the obvious Primary blitz that has bombarded Windham and the rest of New Hampshire in advance of the Jan. 10 election.

But the second has been brewing longer, and after Jan. 10 is going to hit its boiling point. The problem is the ever-growing issue of school overcrowding, and Windham voters are set to face it head-on in March.

There are a couple of options to remedy at least some of the crisis, which right now is most visibly a kindergarten through eighth-grade concern.

Option A on London Bridge Road, next to the high school, for seventh and eighth grade. With enough school board confidence, that could be voted on in two months.

School Board Business Administrator Adam Steel didn't confirm a new junior high as the no. 1 option, but did equate the squeezed timeframe to the kindergarten project preparation.

"The school board last year I think did a nice job bringing the kindergarten project which really was kind of prepared on the same timeline," Steel said. 

Steel did agree that a new middle school and are not comparable in terms of size and scope, and that it's something voters will really need to get behind.

"It’s something that we need voter approval for and voter support and it will require folks asking questions and getting involved in the process," said Steel. "I don't think it's a foregone conclusion of getting a project on the ballot this year."

He said that if it is going to make it to a vote in March, the board will have to weigh it very carefully.

But many residents in town think that it's imperative, with the bond rates what they are, to pull the trigger on a long-term project now.

Michael Hatem, a former school board member who served on a previous facilities committee, said that if a new school is the best option that the board is willing to move forward with, the town needs to act fast.

"There are bond rates of 3 percent and construction is really cheap," said Hatem.

He also argued that since the first bond payment likely wouldn't be made until 2013, the economy could be hitting an upward trend by then.

"I can't see being able to wait more than another two years," said Hatem.

Windham resident Donna Bramante InDelicato echoed Hatem's urgency, saying that people who vote against taking action now don't recognize that a short-term tax hit equates to success long-term for the community.

Speaking for her family, she said the decision to pay the taxes now, even though she and her husband are burdened with high taxes already, makes sense.

"What we see as a minimal investment up front is going to have an exponential payback," said InDelicato.

InDelicato disagreed with option B, which would place an edition on the existing middle school. As that school currently stands, it doesn't have the resources to actually be called a middle school, but rather it is an elementary school.

InDelicato, who is actively invested with the schools in town, said that the setup of extra construction on that parcel doesn't work.

"To put an addition doesn’t make sense for reasons of parking and traffic flow," said Indelicato. 

She also added that it is not eco-friendly, which a new facility could provide.

Indelicato insisted that she would be willing to "bite the bullet" on overcrowding for a couple of years, despite having a fourth grader in the system, if there was an assurance in writing that a new junior high would be constructed.

Steel said that a lot of progress will be made on that subject both during a facilities forum at Windham High School tonight and a regular school board meeting on Tuesday. Both are at 7 p.m.

Also speaking for the current school board was Superintendent Henry LaBranche, who also commented on dissent from InDelicato and other residents that there hasn't been a consistency of communication between the board and those in Windham.

"I would simply offer that every meeting but one relative that we’ve had to a facilities discussion have been public meetings," said LaBranche.

He did add that the board is working with a "blank slate," a facilities master plan, and that there has to be "dynamic tolerance" from both sides – the board and the public.

LaBranche also agreed with Steel, commenting that a sense of urgency can energize the public to become informed before March.

That said, should the ballot item be a new facility, LaBranche thinks that at this point it would be a very split vote as to whether it would pass based on those he has spoken with.

, who served on the committee that drafted the facilities master plan that LaBranche referenced, said that she is all for any type of construction at this point as long as it is done right.

She echoed the concern that the current middle school lacks the infrastructure to be considered anything more than upper elementary, and that the new high school facility is too high-tech for students coming up from eighth grade.

"We built a very technologically advanced high school, and we have kids coming up from a middle school whose curriculum and classroom environment is not up to par," said Petro.

Petro also said that she would not support portables as a solution.

"History has shown that once they're put up they don't go away," said Petro. 

Steel did agree in part with that notion, referencing school districts in the Monadnock area that have had portables for 20 years or more.

But he did say that if you get into a short-term agreement and bind yourself to that as a district, they can go away. 

Steel also disagreed with the notion that they are not viable classrooms, despite the stigma people might place behind them.

"The perception that they're not quality classrooms I think is an unfair one," he said.

LaBranche added that it's the teachers on the inside who matter, and "shame on" someone who comes to the town and stops their investigation of it's viability because of portable classrooms.

"No ones asking the question of what are we are doing instructionally inside of the buildings," said LaBranche.

One woman in the district, who wished to remain anonymous, offered a similar notion on building from the inside out.

"Before we build something new, we first must rebuild our educational and classroom structure," she said "We need to rebuild the budgeting process and benefit packages."

But Al Letizio Jr., another former school board member who also served as chairman, said that constructing new facilities has been going on for too long. He served on the school board starting in 1999, and said that the middle school was an issue then.

"It will now cost one and a half times as much to complete that project the way it should be completed because of what was left off it at that point and we still have to do the elementary school," said Letizio.

Letizio also added that they had the figures in 1999 and knew the overcrowding was coming, but in 2009 the high school took precedent because of an expiring contract with Salem.

He also said that if he were serving on the board, he would rule out those at both extremes: the residents who don't have any kids and refuse to pay extra taxes, and those who do have kids and take the spend without thinking approach because they want new facilities as soon as possible for them.

"They're really taking a selfish and unintelligent position," said Letizio. "Those are the voices that always seem to prevail."

But now the overcrowding issue in the district has reached a fever pitch, and one middle school teacher, who also wished to remain anonymous, is fed up with teachers working on carts since the high school was built.

"The new school does not need to be state-of-the-art like the high school because taxpayers can't afford it, but the current middle school is bursting at the seams," the teacher said.

But as for losing employees to other districts, which some residents like InDelicato insisted would happen if action doesn't happen fast, LaBranche doesn't think facing these issues will have them leaving the town.

"I think our reputation speaks for itself and teachers will not be driven away," he said." Many of the staff members that I hired many years ago – they’ve gone through this before."