News

Letter: Saxe Expansion Is a Strategic Investment for Our Entire Community

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Most of us are familiar with two key numbers at Saxe—1,200 capacity, 1,329 current enrollment. That is only a snapshot of this dire situation. The reality is that when Saxe was renovated over 15 years ago, capacity and enrollment were both 1,200, but that 1,200 was viewed as a short-term spike, and the building was designed to optimally educate an expected average of 1,050 kids. Over the past 15 years, Saxe administrators have worked creatively and patiently to make a building designed for 1,050 students function for 1,200, then 1,250, then 1,275—and now 1,329 students. In this process, Saxe administrators have had to compromise as many as 27 classroom spaces: some classes have much less room than they should for their size/activity (i.e the 8th-grade science class for which the state recommends 950 square feet, in a 585 square-foot classroom), and some classes take place in non-classroom spaces (former faculty lounge, storage areas, alcoves, hallways).

News

Letter: Future of Saxe Expansion Is Future of New Canaan

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As a parent of two children at West School after having recently relocated from Manhattan, my wife and I are very focused on the Saxe Middle School expansion not only for the future of the New Canaan school system, but also for the appeal of New Canaan to new families. We would not have moved to New Canaan but for the strength of the public schools. The Saxe project has been well researched by the Building Committee and has been thoroughly vetted with multiple alternatives considered. The recommended expansion is logical, cost effective (relative to only renovating the auditorium and enlarging the school at a later date) and imperative for the future of Saxe and the town. The recommendation is not a “Cadillac expansion” but only meets “most” of the school’s needs.

News

Officials: Best for Saxe Students, Timing and Costs to Start Building Project Next Summer

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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.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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We’re hearing there’s a town DPW worker who enjoys Kahlúa in the morning. Locust Avenue resident Lauren Cerretani told NewCanaanite.com that she named her 4-year-old rescued Labrador retriever mix ‘Kahlúa’ as soon as she laid eyes on the dog, adopted from the Myrtle Beach, S.C. area at age 13 weeks. (Cerretani’s previous dog was named ‘Bailey.’)

Each morning after 7 a.m., Cerretani walks Kahlúa downtown, and there, during the summer months, she inevitably spots Walt Jaykus of the New Canaan Department of Public Works. Jaykus’ duties include watering the hanging baskets on the lampposts, and he’s had a connection to Kahlúa since the dog moved to New Canaan. “My dog either spots his water cart or Walt himself and she’s pulling me,” Cerretani said.

News

Reunited: Center Schoolers Joanne LaVista and Marie Pinchbeck Back Together at First Presbyterian Nursery School

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In 1980, Marie Pinchbeck was teaching kindergarten while Joanne LaVista was teaching sixth grade down the hall at Center School. LaVista recalls her and Pinchbeck’s classrooms being close to each other and creating a partnership with the “veteran teacher” at the elementary school when she joined the Center School community in 1980, right out of college at the age of 22. “Our classrooms were right near each other and right away we just started being good friends,” LaVista said. “What we set up was that my sixth graders would go to her kindergarten room once a week and read the library books and she would say, ‘I can never get through everyone’s library books. The kids feel bad when they have to turn their book in and they hadn’t read it in school.’ So we had this great partnership going and my sixth graders loved it.