To save money, minimize disruption to students and help construction crews get through the noisiest, dirtiest work more quickly, New Canaan should line up the proposed renovations and additions at Saxe Middle School for a June 2016 start, according to those closest to the estimated $17.1 million project.
Town officials are expected in September to decide whether to approve a committee’s recommendation—backed by the Board of Education in May— to renovate the Saxe auditorium, expand performing arts classroom spaces and build a 2-story, 12-classroom addition on the northwest corner of the school.
According to Jim LaPosta Jr., principal at JCJ Architecture—a firm that’s being retained as the project’s architect—getting a shovel into the ground next June is important “because then it gives you two full summers” to finish the job.
“I’ve been doing this a long time and one thing I know about school construction is summers are pretty precious, because when nobody is on the site the contractors can fully work,” LaPosta said Wednesday during an update on the project (the full presentation can be found here) before the Town Council, held in the Community Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. “They don’t have to worry about students, don’t have to worry about construction. They can take over the building and just get it done. It’s cheaper in the long run to work over the summer, and it gets your project done more quickly.”
A high-level rendering of the building proposal at Saxe Middle School, presented July 15, 2015 to the Town Council.
Asked by Town Council Secretary Kathleen Corbet to clarify how the construction would proceed during classes and the academic year, LaPosta said workers would coordinate with the school to minimize disruption to students.
The main addition, as proposed, would be to the front of the building, accessible by Farm Road, and “there will be temporary construction walls and temporary exits put up,” he said. Testing schedules and quite times, as well as notifications to neighbors, all would be considered in the phasing of the project, LaPosta said.
“Our experience has been that it is slightly disruptive, there is just no way around it,” he said.
The comments follow the town’s approval of $750,000 in “preconstruction costs” in May, and come as a formal decision nears on the widely anticipated project.
The need for the project grew out of what started as a planned renovation of the school’s auditorium after contaminants were found in the aging space last December. That project prompted town officials to look at enrollment as well as visual and performing arts programming, and to form the Saxe Middle School Building Committee. Led by Chairman Penny Rashin and including members of the Town Council and district, among others, the committee proposed a comprehensive expansion that’s garnered wide support from vocal parents at public hearings.
“We know this is a big project,” Rashin told the councilmen during an hour-plus-long presentation and question-and-answer session. “We know this is an important project, and we just want to make sure you all have your questions answered and are comfortable with it.”
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi reviewed specific enrollment projections as well as the methodologies behind them, in explaining that enrollment at the middle school, counting children already in the district, will rise by 52 kids, to 1,344 total this fall (Saxe is built to accommodate 1,200).
Luizzi said New Canaan (like Darien and Westport) is in a situation with only 5 percent of other public schools in New England, where the ratio of local births—the most useful data point for those in the business of projecting these things—to kindergarten enrollment, is about 1.4. In other words, if there are 100 births here, then about five years later the kindergarten enrollment would be about 140 kids.
“It is a fortunate problem to have, in many ways,” Luizzi said. “The inverse is much more difficult to explain or manage or discuss. I think it is a testament to the town, it is a testament to the system.”
Luizzi and Rashin discussed the people behind public school enrollment projections in New Canaan, and anticipated and clarified a number of open questions, such as: whether the addition is designed to provide four additional teacher lounges (no); whether extra rooms at the school will require more teachers to staff them (no, the project is designed to get best learning situation as far as numbers and curriculum); whether the Saxe library, gym and cafeteria are adequately sized (yes, with sufficient scheduling); whether New Canaan should we move the 8th grade to the high school (no, it’s sized to accommodate 9th-12th and not advisable educationally); or move the 5th grade back to the elementary schools (it would cost about $31 million to build enough space for the students, and the current system works educationally).
Questions from the councilmen included: whether increase in numbers between births and kindergarten is that many families generally move here after their first child is born elsewhere (yes); what causes the sometimes dramatic year-over-year variation in class sizes (not sure but it looks steadier in the out years, less of a gap); whether New Canaan will be able to handle increasing special education needs down the road (yes, with this project as proposed); whether there was a second federally funded pre-kindergarten program that the district operates at NCHS (no, there’s a college-credit class that’s aligned with UConn); whether the new classrooms proposed at Saxe will require more custodial staff (not sure, but the auditorium likely will save some maintenance time for the staff); whether additional teachers will be needed for extra rooms (no, noting that two new teachers and supervisory aides recently were hired for Saxe for this fall); whether the auditorium itself could be prioritized in the work schedule (that’s likely, yes); how the committee arrived at a 4 percent annual construction cost increase (mostly from a backlog of work from national construction firms’ jobs in the region, published quarterly); and whether any testing for contaminants has been done on the two areas where the proposed addition would attach to the school (around the music area, yes, and the committee is not expecting to find contaminants in the northwest quadrant).
The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday will hear a request from the committee to approve about $57,000 for a cleanup of contaminants in the auditorium as well as ceramics and boiler rooms. The committee also will come before the Planning & Zoning Commission on July 28 to discuss the proposed building project, officials say.