Jefferson school renovation begins
Portable classrooms are being demolished this week
NORWALK — The first part of a new chapter at Jefferson Elementary School began this week.
While students are out on spring recess, demolition of the portable classrooms behind the main building of Jefferson will begin. It’s the start of a renovation which will completely redesign and revamp the school.
The project will result in a new gymnasium, playground, kitchen and exterior design which will allow for easier drop-offs. There will also be more classroom space.
Much of the work being done to the main building will have to wait as some students from Silvermine Elementary School are in the building until the end of the school year due to COVID density restrictions. But the demolition of the portables represents “an important point of
progress” in the renovation, according to Norwalk Public Schools Chief Communications Officer Brenda Wilcox Williams.
Chief of School Operations Frank Costanzo said the portables have served the district for a number of years but were “at the end of their useful life.” He estimated the structures had been there 10 years or more.
“I think the ultimate goal of any school district is not to educate students in portables,” he said. “Portables by design are temporary and strategic for a period of time as facility improvements are made in a school system. This is what you hope to see, the removal of temporary structures and a school being renovated as new which would serve this population well.”
The school currently has a lot of open classrooms, which Costanzo said was popular at the time of design. Since then, this concept has proven not to be best practice. The new design will allow more closed classroom space.
“Over time as that pedagogy has fallen out of favor ... the employees have tried to create more traditional classroom spaces, and the district has tried to support that,” Costanzo said. “As this building comes down, a lot of what they’re pulling out are partition walls and other items that served as barriers to create classrooms.”
Costanzo said the school is on track to reopen to Jefferson students for the 2022-23 school year. Jefferson students are currently relocated at Ponus Ridge Middle School.
Jefferson was designed for a little over 400 students, but enrollment was approaching 600, according to Costanzo, due to the number of students in the magnet program there. The school is phasing out of the magnet program, he added, to become a neighborhood school again with about 400 students.
“This was really a beautiful school, and it’ll be stateof-the-art and offer all the things we want to see,” he said. “This community has looked forward to a new school in the neighborhood and they’re really deserving of it. I’m so excited to see it all come together.”
An official groundbreaking of the project will occur later this spring, according to Wilcox Williams.