Elementary School Rebuild Plan Faces First Crucial Vote This Week
- Philip Thibodeau
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
An ambitious rebuilding plan that will affect four of the town’s eight elementary schools will receive the first in a series of critical votes this Thursday evening when Board of Education members gather at the Weichsel Center for their bi-monthly meeting.
If it wins the necessary support – first from the Board of Education, then from the Board of Finance, Town Council, and finally voters at a referendum – the construction plan, which is known as D-2 for short, would be rolled out in two phases.
In the first, an updated Kelley School would be built in the open field behind the existing structure; once this is ready, the old building would be demolished. At the same time, five new classrooms would be added to the existing building at South End School. This work would be completed by the start of the 2029-2030 school year. At that point Flanders would be shut down, with its students and staff redistricted to nearby schools.
In the second phase, which would get underway that same year, a new, smaller Derynoski School would be constructed in the field below the existing one, along with a dedicated building for special-needs students, the Karen Smith Academy. Once the new structure is occupied, it would be up to the town to decide what to do with the old Derynoski and Flanders buildings.
The Board of Education already voted at its May 8 meeting last year to move ahead with phase one of the rebuild, postponing a decision on phase two. Recently, however, the Republican caucus on Town Council signaled that it was unwilling to throw its support behind any rebuild unless the Board voted to approve phases one and two together.
The reason for this move, according to Town Council Chair and Republican majority leader Paul Chaplinsky, is that his caucus wants clarity on the long-term plan. That way, he and other town leaders can initiate discussions about the future uses of Derynoski and Flanders – discussions that they hope will assuage residents’ fear that the buildings will be demolished or sold off for development.
Background for the Rebuild
The district first began weighing its options for the elementary schools in earnest in 2021. The basic issue, according to Superintendent Steve Madancy, is modernization. Since 1950, when Derynoski was built, and 1966, when Kelley and Flanders opened, not much has changed in their built structures except for such things as the installation of LED lighting. Due to their age, the buildings are not the warm, safe, and dry places they need to be. Furthermore, the operational costs associated with outdated HVAC systems are growing every year.
Another reason given for the rebuild has to do with utilization. Every school has a certain maximum number of students it can serve – roughly speaking, the number of classrooms multiplied by the largest allowable class size for the grades in question. It is more cost-effective, in terms of energy use and administrative overhead, to operate schools close to that maximum number, with 85 to 90% utilization considered optimal.
None of Southington’s elementary schools currently lies within that range. According to district figures, Thalberg has the highest figure, 83%, followed by South End (79%), Derynoski (77%), Oshana (76%), Strong (76%), Hatton (75%), and Kelley (74%), with Flanders an outlier at just 63%.
This underutilization reflects the fact that the size of the student population has been slowly declining over the past two decades. Elementary enrollments peaked at around 3,100 in 2010, and have dipped since then to about 2,660.
Going forward, Southington – unlike many communities in Connecticut – has recently seen a modest increase in both births and the number of people moving to town. For that reason elementary school enrollment is expected to climb slowly over the next few years before stabilizing around a new peak of 2,850. That increase should raise utilization rates slightly, but would still leave most schools below 85%, with Flanders, again, at just 69%.
How should the district address these two issues – and do so at the least cost, and with the least possible disruption to student learning? To provide some answers, the town brought on a trio of outside consulting firms to take a close look at the numbers and game out various solutions. Last April 1, representatives from the firms MP Planning Group, Colliers, and Studio Jaed gave a presentation at DePaolo Middle School where they sketched out a number of alternative plans labelled A, B, C, and D, with various sub-options. (A video of the presentation can be viewed here.)
The reasoning that led them to recommend plan D-2 comes down to this: once implemented, it would ensure all students in the district were going to school in comfortable, modern, energy-efficient facilities, achieve an 88 percent utilization rate, and carry the smallest price tag. And that is the plan that is on the table now.
Criticisms of the Plan
There is broad consensus within town that something needs to be done about its three oldest elementary schools. The construction of a new Kelley school has been received favorably, with some parents even calling for timeline on the project to be sped up.
But there have been plenty of criticisms as well. For starters, plan D-2 would not come cheap: last April the total budget for both phases was given as $173.7 million, of which the town’s share would be $97.2 million, paid for by issuing bonds. While the town has a top-notch credit rating, something that would keep the interest share of its debt service under control, it would need to budget an additional few million dollars each year to cover the cost of the project in the decades to come. Updated estimates for the project’s total cost will be presented at this Thursday’s Board of Education meeting.
A key sticking point for many residents is the proposed closure of Flanders. Some of those who went to school there or sent their children to Flanders have lamented the loss of a building that holds treasured memories. On the Facebook page Southington Talks, Sherrie Shover touched off a discussion that elicited more than 260 comments by writing, “I am not in support of this [closure], being a Flanders alumni myself and having a kids currently in and about to enter Flanders. I understand it's coming down to funding, and consolidation is needed for the other school projects to happen, but we don't need fewer schools here in town, especially a lovely neighborhood school. Isn't that why we live in Southington, for neighborhood schools like Flanders? It's one reason I wanted to stay in this town and live in the Flanders district.”
Like Shover, Board members Joe Baczewski and Terri Carmody noted after last April’s presentation that closing Flanders would fly in the face of the educational ideal called ‘neighborhood schools.’ This is the idea that students benefit from proximity to their schools because it allows them to have neighbors as classmates and shortens commute times; since schools also serve as hubs of community activity, proximity often means stronger community connection.
Another common criticism of the plan has to do with open space. Some commenters, especially on social media, have foreseen an endgame where the closing of Flanders gives the town the chance to sell the land to a developer and so eliminate one of the last tracts of unbuilt land in that area of town. In recent years, local resistance to new development has grown increasingly stiff, and the Flanders project has now become another flashpoint for this issue.
Weighing the Pros and Cons
The response to the first two criticisms has generally been to note that none of the alternatives are any better – they either allow conditions at the old schools to deteriorate further, are more disruptive to students’ educational experience, or cost more than the town can afford.
The consultants started by gaming out a scenario in which the town brought the facilities at the existing Kelley, Flanders, and Derynoski buildings up to modern standards. These upgrades would cost over $120 million – and leave the district with the same low utilization rate of about 80%.
The advantages of replacing Derynoski with a new school about one-third smaller than the original quickly became clear. Building a new school on a smaller footprint was actually projected to cost much less than upgrading the old one. So the question then became whether to close Kelley or Flanders.
One reason Flanders was chosen is that it has the lowest current utilization. Another is that it is in the close proximity to schools, Hatton and Thalberg, where students could be reassigned without added travel time; closing Kelley, by contrast, would put a commuting strain on families to its west.
Finally, the consultants determined that Flanders is not favorably situated for a rebuild. The current structure is on the best part of the site in terms of accessibility, and putting a building in any other location would create access difficulties. For Kelley, this is much less of a problem.
What to Do with the Old Buildings?
As for what will happen to the former Derynoski and Flanders buildings, no concrete proposals have been spelled out yet. That said, at a recent Districtwide Facilities Committee meeting, Chaplinsky floated some possibilities which share a common assumption – that the old Derynoski building and the Flanders school and field would remain in town hands.
One idea brought up at the meeting is to turn Derynoski into a multi-use building, with the classrooms converted into low-income units run by the town’s Housing Authority, the gym becoming a recreational venue, and the auditorium a space for community theater. Speaking of Flanders, Chaplinsky said it might make sense to consolidate various town operations there that are currently housed in smaller buildings all over Southington.
These ideas are very tentative, and could well hit unforeseen roadblocks; final decisions on the buildings’ use may have to wait for years. That said, town leaders have expressed a desire to preserve the structures, and in public meetings no one has advocated for turning them over to developers.
The Board of Education will vote on plan D-2 this Thursday, February 19. If it passes, it will then go to the Board of Finance and the Town Council. Should it also be approved there, phase one of the plan will go to a town-wide referendum, with a vote tentatively scheduled for June 2.
