Sam Gurwitt Photo
WIMS Teacher Amy Perrone during a class in December.
Come fall, students at the Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School (WIMS) will show up to the same teachers and administration, but not on Wintergreen Avenue. That building is now in the hands of the Hamden Board of Education.
Rather, their busses will drop them off at the former Cortlandt V.R. Creed High School building on Bassett Road in North Haven.
The Hamden Legislative Council passed a minor bureaucratic hurdle Monday evening that handed over the Wintergreen school building to the BOE as it carries out its district restructuring plan.
WIMS is a K‑8 magnet run by Area Cooperative Educational Services with students from Hamden, New Haven, and a number of surrounding towns. ACES must vacate the building after the end of the current school year after the Hamden BOE voted in November not to continue its lease agreement with ACES in order to incorporate the building into the district as a regular public elementary.
The plan will also involve closing the Shepherd Glen and Church Street schools, among other changes. (Read previous articles about the plan here).
In order to continue implementing the board’s approved plan, the BOE needed to take control of the Wintergreen building, which is owned by the Town of Hamden. The council voted unanimously to turn over the building to the board.
The board’s vote in November met with staunch opposition from WIMS families. Parents showed up in force to meetings wearing “ACES WIMS Works” shirts and spoke passionately at public hearings in hopes that their kids’ school would not have to leave its building.
Hamden Mayor Curt Leng and ACES Executive Director Thomas Danehy tried to negotiate a deal in which ACES would buy the building from the town, but as they announced in January, they were unable to agree on a price that would work for both the town and ACES.
The building on Wintergreen Ave.
When Leng and Danehy announced the end of their negotiations, ACES was tentatively looking at the building on Bassett Road in North Haven, which is owned by Gateway Community College. ACES has now signed a long-term lease to officially make the space home come fall.
ACES Chief of Marketing and Outreach said that ACES is excited about the opportunities that the move will bring.
She told the Independent that “it’s a beautiful space… We’re going to have to do some sprucing up to get it ready but the building is in good shape.”
The current building — the one on Wintergreen Avenue — is adorned with artwork and plaques from 20 years of history.
“The spirit of Wintergreen will make the move to North Haven, and we look forward to making new memories, new experiences, and strengthening our programming in our new space,” said Rossetti-Ryan.
When the BOE voted to end its agreement with ACES and take back the Wintergreen building, it used the assumption, provided by one of its consultants, that 70 percent of the students from Hamden who go to WIMS would leave the school and go to a district elementary. Surveys by WIMS parents showed that many fewer parents, however, intended to send their kids to a Hamden School District elementary if WIMS had to relocate.
WIMS parents Jodie Melton and Thomas Figlar.
Based on the numbers of returnees ACES has heard from so far, it appears unlikely that 70 percent of Hamden WIMS students will leave the school.
“It seems as if a majority of the students will be staying with Wintergreen,” said Rossetti-Ryan, though ACES does not yet know its families’ intentions for sure. She explained that ACES is in the process of receiving letters from families notifying the network of their intention to return, so the numbers are not yet certain.
Nonetheless, WIMS will have to vacate the building before the 2019 – 2020 school year, when the school will house students from Alice Peck while their building undergoes renovations, as well as students from the Hamden Collaborative Learning Center (HCLC).
Plans for the 2020 – 2021 school year are still uncertain, though the building will likely still house HCLC. At-Large Council Rep. Lauren Garrett said that the building would likely be underused that year as other projects that will require swing space will not yet have begun.
Wintergreen will also have to undergo its own minor renovation before it can become a district elementary. Current plans anticipate adding office space, bathrooms, and lighting. The board intends the school to not only serve as a regular elementary, but also to house all of the district’s special needs classrooms.
According to a timeline that Architect Bill Silver presented to the board at the end of March, the Wintergreen renovations will happen during the 2021 – 2022 school year, meaning the school will not house its full program until the fall of 2022.
What is going to happen to this nice building? Will it be left empty and unused like New Light HS on Wooster Place. As mayor, I would use these buildings. They are city assets.