Hamden Ed Board OKs $48.6 Million For School Renovations

With a state grant application deadline fast approaching, the Hamden Board of Education passed a $48,574,438 capital budget request that will allow the district to convert four elementary schools into magnet schools and bring sixth graders to the middle school.

The plan, which passed unanimously at the end of a four-hour special board meeting Tuesday night, directs Superintendent Jody Goeler to ​“continue the development of intra-district magnet schools” at the Helen Street School, Ridge Hill School, Dunbar Hill School, and Bear Path School.

The board also passed a preliminary plan for the themes of the four schools that will become magnets: career pathways, global studies and citizenship, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math)/STEM, and environmental sciences.

(Read more about the plans here.)

The 3R Initiative, which the board approved in November, will also close two elementary schools, add the Wintergreen school to the district, and create universal pre‑K.

The $48.6 million does not include the almost $33 million in planned renovations to the Alice Peck and West Woods schools because those plans have already passed the Legislative Council and the state has already approved those grants. Including those projects, Hamden is looking at $81.2 million in school construction and renovation projects in the next few years, though if all goes as planned, $52.6 million will be covered by state grants, leaving the town with $28.6 million of the total.

The board has been under pressure to pass its plans in order to get them to the Legislative Council for approval so that grant applications can be submitted to the state by the June deadline. The board had hoped to decide on magnet school programs and get its plans to the council earlier in the month, but the board had to delay its vote because of uncertainty about which schools would become magnets, which in turn determines the schools that will need renovations.

Magnetic Attractions

At Tuesday’s meeting, Goeler presented a plan for four intra-district magnet schools. Goeler had promised to prepare the presentation at a meeting last week after BOE members kicked themselves for not having had the magnet discussion sooner.

Goeler’s recommendation, which the board accepted as a preliminary plan, will involve major renovations to Ridge Hill and Dunbar Hill, and only minor changes to Helen Street and Bear Path.

The board included magnet schools in the 3Rs as an innovative way of addressing the racial imbalances in Hamden’s schools, and in order to attract people to the town. Hamden, said Goeler, has had state-defined ​“pending imbalances” in the racial demographics of some of its elementary schools. Though no schools in the district exceed the level at which the state designates a school as ​“unbalanced,” several schools frequently float close to the mark. While the town could simply redraw its attendance zones, said Goeler, that might only be a temporary fix, and the town could find itself in the same situation again after a few years. Introducing magnet schools that would draw from anywhere in the district could allow the BOE more control over the racial balancing of its schools in the long run.

At the moment, Goeler said the board plans to oversee admission to the magnets with a lottery system. If the board needs to increase or decrease the proportion of non-white students at a school, it could use the lottery as a way of controlling the school’s balance. Each of the magnets will still have its own attendance zone, but those zones will be smaller than they currently are to open up spots for students from other parts of town.

Hamden’s high taxes have also discouraged people from moving into the town recently, and the board hopes that investments in schools will help attract families to the town.

“People are running out of Hamden as fast as they can and can’t sell a house,” said BOE Member Melinda Saller. The magnet schools, she told the board, could help turn that flow around.

Goeler’s magnet plan drew from the work of Director of Instructional Technology Karen Kaplan, who has spent the last few weeks meeting with parents and hearing their ideas and preferences.

Moving families voluntarily from one school to another, said Goeler, is very difficult. ​“Families love their schools. They love their attendance zones.”

Yet Goeler hopes that an exciting array of offerings in other parts of town could attract families to send their students outside of their attendance zone.

His plan for Helen Street includes two aspects. It will have extended hours, with before- and after-school programs bookending the day. Parents will be able to drop their kids off at 7 a.m., and the students will stay at school until 5:30 p.m. Extended hours would provide working parents with childcare for the whole work day, something that many board members agreed would be popular based on their own experiences as parents in the district. In her discussions with parents, Kaplan said she had heard the most excited about after-school care. 

Helen Street will also have a ​“career pathways” theme, in which students will ​“explore career options, anticipate what skills may be advantageous for future careers, and explore entrepreneurialism.”

Goeler said that Helen Street — one of the schools the state has deemed closed to unbalanced — will be one of the most difficult to draw families away from, based on the discussions Kaplan had with parents there.

At Ridge Hill, Goeler’s plan would create a global studies and citizenship theme. It would include foreign language instruction starting in kindergarten, community service built into the curriculum, and political science. Like Helen Street, it would also have extended hours, though not for the convenience of parents but rather to allow for more instruction time.

At last week’s meeting, Goeler told the board that in order to successfully institute a magnet program in the district, schools will need to attract families not only with programming but also with facilities.

Ridge Hill, he said, will need renovations in the next few years, and though the need is not as desperate as it is at West Woods, rolling the renovations into the current project will allow the town to maximize state funding for the work. The architect, Bill Silver, has budgeted $16,875,100 to renovate every system in the building in a ​“renovate as new” project that the town hopes will befunded at 68 percent by the state.

Dunbar Hill will also require a renovate as new project in addition to six new classrooms, costing an estimated $17,584,000. Like Ridge Hill, Goeler said that Dunbar Hill will also need renovations in the next few years, and the town can roll that work into the 3R Initiative now in order to get the 68 percent reimbursement the town hopes for.

According to the plan, Dunbar Hill will house a STEAM magnet, which will include instruction in technology and engineering as well as in the arts. Including arts in the program, turning STEM into STEAM, said Goeler, acknowledges that STEM disciplines include a significant design component. Art, Goeler explained, provides the ​“glue” that holds the STEM disciplines together.

The STEAM theme may require lab spaces and technology beyond what other schools in the district offer, as well as robust theater, music, and visual arts programs.

Bear Path will become the fourth magnet, with an environmental sciences theme. The school already has a nature trail — the Trauner Trail, named for former principal Scott Trauner.

Students will explore sustainability, recycling, natural resources, and the local natural environment. The school may feature a greenhouse as well as field trips to nature preserves.

Include The Themes?

Though the plan remains preliminary and will likely change as the board continues the 3R process, many board members said they were very pleased with Goeler’s presentation.

“I’m personally very happy with what we saw,” said Board Member Walter Morton. ​“I think it’s a big bold statement about where we want to go in the next 20 years.”

Though most of the board could agree that the proposal was very promising, some thought it was worth including the themes in the plan that the board would send to the council, while others did not want to rush the process.

The board, said Perez-Cabello, is dealing with three audiences. For the state and for the council, the preliminary plans should be sufficient. Yet the public, he said, deserves more. ​“To them, we owe… more than just a preliminary conversation.” He urged the board to consider leaving the themes out of the plan it presented to the council so that the board could think through them more carefully.

Knowing the themes of the magnet schools is not necessary for the grant applications that the town will send to the state, according to the town’s consultants. ​“Identifying the schools is crucial,” architect Chris Nardi told the board, ​“but not the theme at each school.”

Yet other board members wanted to include the themes in the plan as a starting point that can be amended later.

“We have to start to coalesce around something and this is the starting point,” said Board Member Myron Hul. That view ultimately won out, and the board passed a motion unanimously that named the four anticipated themes.

Middle School Gets A New Wing

The board’s vote also approved the renovations that will allow the town’s sixth graders to move to the middle school.

The plans will involve adding a new wing to the school, expanding the cafeteria, and adding an auxiliary gym.

Since the last meeting, the architects had updated the middle school plans slightly, adding an additional 2,600 square feet, split between two floors, to the end of the planned sixth grade wing. It will house additional office space and two special education classrooms. After discussions with Whitson’s, the contractor that runs the cafeteria, the architects also determined that the kitchen will need an additional serving line.

In all, the renovations will add 24,600 square feet to the school — 15,800 on the first floor and 8,800 on the second — and will cost an estimated $11,223,900.

The capital budget can now go to the Legislative Council for approval, after which the town can submit its grant applications to the state. At the earliest, construction will not begin on the middle school until the spring of 2020, though a 2021 start date is more likely. Ridge Hill and Dunbar Hill renovations will also probably begin in 2021, if not later.