Evaluating Groton's School Facilities

Editor's note: This story was first posted two weeks ago. We are re-running it to provide an overview of the school building issues expected to be discussed in the coming weeks and months.

Groton school officials have been scrambling to find a solution to outdated facilities since the failure of the Phase II referendum last spring.

This summer, in an effort to return to the lengthy process of meeting state standards, the school board evaluated figures for improvements at six of Groton’s most in-need schools—four of which were toured by Patch.

Estimated cost for improvement in all six schools runs from $79 million to $108 million and stands to benefit 42 percent of Groton’s student body in the academic year ahead—nearly 2,200 children.

A Quick History Lesson

“I think that there’s a perception out there that somehow there’s been a lack of attention to the schools and therefore they’re where they are. That’s not the truth, but that is the outcome.” –Wes Greenleaf, director of buildings and grounds, Groton Public School District

In 1989, 1992, and again in 1994, administration at schools within the district brought to the attention of the board of education the need for facility improvements. In 1995, the school board, represented by then-member Michael Hewitt, brought the issue to the town council.

At the time, Groton had been reeling from a recession and faced capital improvement challenges in facilities throughout the town, including the senior center and town hall.

A blue ribbon committee was commissioned to consider and prioritize improvement for all town buildings. As a result of the findings, the town consigned to a phased approach to school improvements.

The first referendum, which took three years to develop, included the construction of two new schools and renovations to Fitch High School.

Minor renovations had always been made to keep schools functioning, but the overarching issues to resolve fire and safety code problems, handicap accessibility, heating, parking, and racial balance were left for Phase II. Funds for such capital improvements, or long-term improvements aimed to add years to the life of a building, were, and are, appropriated by the town of Groton.

“I can’t tell you how many committee meetings I’ve been to,” said Wes Greenleaf, director of buildings and grounds at the public school district. “It’s extremely frustrating, I can tell you that.”

The second phase, a $133 million referendum, was voted down.

Going After Grant Money

“Eight years ago, the state had these grants and they applied to only new buildings,” said Greenleaf. “So a lot of times a district would simply abandon a building even though it was salvageable just to get the grant. And they had to, they had no choice, they had to go after the money.”

To stave rampant development, the state came up with a new program, in which districts were given funds to renovate old buildings to the comparable conditions of new buildings. Older buildings were left with original framework.

“Most towns in the state of Connecticut took advantage of the grant over the last fifteen years,” said Greenleaf. “It cost the state over a billion dollars. Groton hesitated—probably for good reasons. We developed a plan that made sense, but took forever.”

Recent cuts in the state have dropped available funds for these renovate-as-new grants. The state, however, offers a grant to pay for 80 percent of facility improvements when improvements aim to resolve issues in racial balance.

“When I chip away at this stuff, I can get grants only for some of [it],” said Greenleaf. “So that’s the dilemma the town’s in and it’s not something that we had planned. We planned to have referendums that would pass. Now we have to look seriously about extending the life of these buildings and spending money in a reasonable way that doesn’t waste it in the future.”  

A Closer Look

Though the buildings have been maintained, they require what Greenleaf called ‘high price-tag items,’ like handicap accessibility, heating system overhauls, and updates to meet fire and safety standards. For each suggested capital improvement outlined by Greenleaf, there are a number of small line-items improvements that also need to be accomplished. Improvements under immediate consideration do not address consolidation or racial balancing.

Of the buildings under evaluation by the school board, many grapple with issues in meeting fire code.

“I think we've got some serious, serious issues here fire code wise,” said Greenleaf. “... you take a school like Mary Morrisson, where we don’t have a sprinkler system, we have a code notification, [then] we put smoke detectors in the hall. It’s not up to standards of modern schools.”

Space and storage problems also create safety code challenges. Lack of space has prompted the need for 18 trailer and temporary classrooms. The portable units were constructed in 1971, 1993, and 2006. Temporary units weigh on campus security, as access to and from the main building requires that entryways remain unlocked throughout the day.

Some schools struggle with ventilation and air quality.

A room can feel five degrees warmer, which an be an issue when it's particularly hot outside.  “You start to see why people have air conditioning," said Greenleaf. "[Students] don’t get a lot done. Plus air quality drops off.”

Between 2006 and 2009, 331 children in the Groton School District were reported to have asthma. Poor ventiation or mold could aggravate the condition, he said.

“The EPA says [that] if you have a room with no ventilation, high humidity, and three or four kids have an asthmatic problem, and it appears to be aggravated by the room, then the answer is that it’s absolutely true [there is mold] and we have to treat it that way.”

Capital improvements linked to non-friable asbestos are a likely candidate for renovate-as-new funds. If the town decides to close schools like Fitch Middle School in the future, non-friable asbestos will still require abatement.

Other renovate-as-new funds might stand to offset continual repair, as it had at Claude Chester Elementary School.

The town spent $600,000 to replace the windows at Chester in 1995.

“The cost of windows in this area, because we’re in a hurricane area and we need 110 mile an hour impact windows that are fabulously expensive, wouldn’t save enough fuel to make it pay,” said Greenleaf.

Still, the expenditure was a necessary evil, as panels of glass were falling from the sills of Chester.

Greenleaf was awarded a partial grant for repair and performed the work with the approval of town council.

This was not the first time school maintenance teams performed capital improvement work. The team put in a new boiler system in the early 1980s.

“Our job is maintenance,” he continued. “We have the expertise, we have a licensed crew, and we’re big enough to do [capital improvements], but if we start doing [them], then we’re not doing our job.”

Board Discussion

The Board discussed capital improvement priorities at the end of July, paying close attention to issues of security, student achievement, and safety. The next step is to gather estimates and create orders of magnitude for proposed improvements before approaching the town council this fall.  

The town has already approved roughly $350,000 for engineering designs, which will be supplemented with district funds provided by the state.

“The way you do capital improvement is you bring this to the town, we look at it with the town, we come up with money for an architect, and we have a rough estimate of what it will cost and we plan it out over a couple of years,” said Greenleaf. “[Then] the architect comes up with a much, much closer price. A lot of these will require referendums alone.”

“There [are] a couple things here,” said Superintendent Paul Kadri. “One is: how much does it cost to do it? The second is: how do you possibly do it with school going on? Not everything here can be done completely over the summer.”

“To me this is being penny wise and pound foolish,” said board member Chaz Zezulka, of S.B. Butler Elementary. “We had fifty years to come up with a plan and now what we’re doing is saying, ‘taxpayer, I don’t like this.’”

Greenleaf said the issue was raised in 1994, when Mike Hewitt reported to the town council.  “That’s what? Sixteen? Seventeen years ago? A lot of time had passed and buildings were already, at that time, 30 years old, which is the shelf life of a building.

“Without major reinvestment, we’re looking at 50 years old,” he said. “They’re way beyond that point.”