‘COMING TO LIFE’
Construction begins on Brookfield elementary school
BROOKFIELD — With the first perimeter fences erected and construction equipment arriving on site Monday, the town is prepared to start the final phase of a project they’ve dreamed about for decades: construction of Candlewood Lake Elementary School.
The school is expected to open in the fall of 2022, replacing Huckleberry Hill Elementary School. Beautification work and details will be finalized once students are already in the building.
The town will officially announce its groundbreaking for the new school later this spring. But the bulldozers have already arrived.
“I just said today as I dropped my daughter off at school, it’s surreal because this community has been talking about this project for years — I want to say probably close to a decade — and it really start
The school is expected to open in the fall of 2022, replacing Huckleberry Hill Elementary School. Beautification work and details will be finalized once students are already in the building.
ed to get traction and get off the ground about four years ago,” Board of Education Chairman Rosa Fernandes said. “Now, it’s coming to life, which is very exciting.”
In a year marked by a global pandemic and remote learning, among other obstacles, the project has stayed on schedule, Fernandes said.
The town voted to approve the $78.1 million plan for the new school in March 2019. With the aid of a $16.7 million state grant, the town will cover the remaining costs.
The school board selected the new name — Candlewood Lake Elementary School — after families were surveyed. Other submissions from students included “Cool School,” “Happy Landings Elementary” and “Friendship Elementary.”
The new building will include classrooms for pre-kindergarten-through-fifthgrade students, integrating school-age populations from Center Elementary School, Huckleberry Elementary, and Whisconier Middle School fifth-graders, and effectively putting all elementary students in the same building.
One of the biggest improvements is the inclusion of fifth-grade classrooms, which, for years, were portable classroom units attached to Whisconier Middle School. The middle school was originally only built to house sixth through eighth grades, according to officials. This is something the town has wanted for a long time, Fernandes said.
Fernandes remembers attending class in the portable units. Now, her daughter will experience fourth and fifth grade in the new school building.
“We’ve never had a permanent structure for fifth-graders,” Fernandes said. “This is something that I think everyone is in favor of.”
Even before John Barile was hired as \superintendent of Brookfield schools, this project was a major focus during his interviews, he said. It was one of the initiatives that drew him to the district.
“We have collaborated as a community and planned this for five years,” Barile said. “It’s just so exciting.”
Barile said he entered the district at a “tumultuous time,” when there was “lots of turnover and lots of controversy,” but this project has helped bring the community together.
Overall, the new school will affect about two-thirds of Brookfield’s students by creating more space, Barile said.
“The plan is so special because it changes the physical part of schooling,” along with other important improvements, Barile said.
Finalized plans include about 10 more classrooms than originally expected. Fernandes said after the district received an enrollment report showing growth, the board wanted to ensure enough space would be in the new building for the additional students. They planned for at least one extra classroom per grade level, she said.
The classrooms will be included at no further cost to taxpayers, since they were added to the project after the town voted, Fernandes said. The cost of additions were handled through the bidding process, so the town included the extra construction costs without having to go back to the voters for more money, she said.
The town’s municipal buildings committee has been in charge of selecting contract bids, which were submitted throughout January. The sitework bid was awarded to Gerber Construction, and other bids for various aspects of the project are still outstanding, Fernandes said.
She called it an “aggressive bidding season” that returned “very favorable” bids.
“It does sound like a very quick turnaround but so far everything with this project has, knock on wood, gone really smoothly,” Fernandes said. “It’s been so seamless so far, so that kind of gives us hope that we can continue on this way.”