A $115 million plan to build two schools will likely move forward swiftly in the new year.
An architect could be hired in as soon as February to design the proposed kindergarten to eighth grade school in Forestville, said Tom O’Brien, the Board of Education member spearheading the project.
By mid-year, he said, “serious design work” could be underway.
The companion school eyed for the West End, which would also serve 900 students in a K-8 setting, remains mired in controversy, but officials say that a decision has to be made soon.
The schools got a preliminary green light from the City Council and Board of Education last June, but the west Bristol school site has yet to be chosen and the Forestville site next door to Greene-Hills School is still in private hands.
Mayor Art Ward said that negotiations with Ken Crowley to buy the former auto dealership on Pine Street will begin in earnest soon.
The school board plans to open the two new schools within the next four or five years and to close four of the city’s oldest schools: Memorial Boulevard Middle School and three primary schools – Greene-Hills, O’Connell and Bingham.
A massive redistricting scheme would, of course, accompany the shift in buildings.
Though there has been some strident opposition to the proposal, every incumbent school board member who sought reelection was returned to office in November. They all backed the project, and so did the three newcomers chosen for the panel.
O’Brien said that the Forestville School Building Committee will likely advertise for an architect in January and hire one the following month.
“Three or four years from now, we may actually see a school there,” O’Brien said.
Officials said they’d like the west Bristol school to remain on roughly the same timetable because opening them at the same time might reduce costs and would allow for only a single large, probably painful redistricting effort.
But the initial site picked for the school in the western part of the city, in a Scalia Construction sand pit off Barlow Street, was turned down by the council.
Other potential locations include the former Roberts property on Chippens Hill, another sand pit and the former grocery store property between Divinity and Park streets, across from Rockwell Park.
O’Brien said he still hopes the Divinity Street site will emerge on top because it would help the neighborhood and bolster a troubled section of town. It would require purchasing about 35 private homes and businesses, many of them rental properties.
The West Bristol School Building Committee is waiting for the council to approve new members this month and then will again tackle the issue of where to put the new school.
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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
10 comments:
The Roberts property isn't an option because of the open space replacement issue. Why are officials still talking like its an option?
I thought the Crowley property was severely contaminated. How can they even begin thinking about designs for that site at this point?
Bristol has students shooting guns at each other, dying in reckless car accidents, an administration making policy causing kids to learn less and less about America, less classroom time compared to other kids in other cities, bullies traumatizing kids, and little kids going to school hungry. At least all this will be happening at shiny new schools.
I bet they will have top notch athletic fields, which is the important thing.
Our BOE is a disgrace, as are the leaders who support what they are doing. Get your priorities straight!
Happy 2008 to you and your "optimistic" views of progress for the community.
just because 2008 is almost here doesn't mean we should suddenly be naive or deny the facts.
to the 11:42am poster I suggest you run for the BOE and change all that is broken!
Whenever Steve Collins decides to write a commentary or write a story on current plans of the School Board, many bloggers criticize the sites, the K-8 model, and generally beat up O'Brien and Doyle.
If I remember correctly, both garnered the highest number of votes for their re-elections. The old adage of "To The Victors Go The Spoils" still holds true.
I also believe there were two candidates who opposed any new schools and were opposed to the K-8 model. They lost.
Several new BOE candidates who were subsequently elected spoke little or nothing at all on their positions of new schools and the K-8 model. I assumed they were in tacit approval of both. They won.
Therefore, I would conclude that the majority of the taxpayers and those who bothered to vote, also agreed with the need of new schools and the K-8 structure.
My final conclusion based on my suppositions (correct or not) is that the majority wants new schools and desire the K-8 model and those that continually criticize, especially on this blog are in the minority.
Democracy is still ruled by the majority, right or wrong.
"To the victor goes the spoils"?
That's the mindset of someone accustomed to living in a dicatarship,a monarchy, or in bastardized fantasy of a democractic process.
Which if you have lived in Bristol all your life, you are well accustomed.
The only way one can ascertain if the majority is in favor of spending $115 M plus for new schools is by submitting the measure for a public vote on the on the bonding proposal ---just like a number of CT municipalities do.
Sweethearts, you will NEVER have the chance to do that in Bristol!
NEVER.
Pity some haven't grasped the fact that some states like NJ, Mass,& Maine make sure that before new school construction is approved, it is required that the municipality show that it cannot rehab an older school building or another building.
"Pity some haven't grasped the fact that some states like NJ, Mass,& Maine make sure that before new school construction is approved, it is required that the municipality show that it cannot rehab an older school building or another building."
It is way more expensive to retrofit a pre-code structure into compliance than to build new, so to pay for a study to show that would be a waste of money. Think about your own house: how much do you think it would add to the cost of building an addition if you also had to make every existing doorway, window, heating duct, stairway, etc. etc. etc. 2" bigger? And to do all this construction while you were living in it? That's what happens when you try to renovate a school that's being used.
Don't be so shortsighted and myopic.
The reason these states have enacted these requirements and have adpoted them as State public policy, is that it is the most cost effective use of taxpayer dollars.
When you add up the land costs, the transportation costs, the added infrastructure cost, etc.;
AND have the honesty to assess the additional social costs associated with the creation of larger sized schools--- increased drop out rates, teen preganacies, drug use, violence, crime, welfare benefits,etc.
Bottom line....its better to rehab and keep smaller neighborhood schools.
NJ has gone so far as to determine and suggest an "optimum" size for it high schools.
The states that have adopted these policies are looking at the OVERALL cost of providing public education and assessing -- the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Has Nicastros concern for thwe environmentals been resolved?
He seems to be awful quiet about that.
Is he waiting to sprng another "surprise"?
Where are you Frank?
Frankie won't be happy until he is on the committee.
Being mayor isn't enough for him.
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