Does Torrington really need a new high school?

While a private house is not remotely a municipal building, what if certain basic principles hold true for both? For example how many homeowners raze a residence, as opposed to maintaining and renovating it?

The same choice faces Torrington voters on Nov. 3: raze and build new, or renovate/update. Personally, I’m in favor of renovating, and there are plenty of precedents in its favor.

In my lifetime Torrington has razed only two schools: Southeast and Wetmore. Plenty of small and one-room schools were razed before that, though West Side and Burrville schools still stand and are private homes today. Three large, century+ old schools: Vogel, Southwest, and Forbes were expanded and updated. Five other schools: Migeon Avenue, North, East (on East Main), South, and Riverside were totally repurposed away from classroom use.

I look at the other area high schools: Litchfield, Wamogo, Gilbert, Watertown, Thomaston, Naugatuck, Housatonic, Lewis Mills, et al, and they were all built post-1955 flood to make room for the incoming baby boom generation. There’s a similarity of late 1950s/early 1960s architecture, and, I’m sure, a similarity of infrastructure. What there’s not is a movement afoot to knock any of them down.

Razing a building complex such as Torrington’s should be done only as a last resort and then only because of extreme need. For example, it’s discovered that the school was built over a toxic waste dump, on top of a soon-to-be active volcano/fault line, etc.

And while these are extreme, somewhat absurd examples, there are more pragmatic ones for keeping the Red Raider home in place.

First, there’s tradition. The current school has a 57 year heritage behind it, and that’s no small thing. If heritage meant nothing, the buildings of Washington DC, the Ivy League, and the downtowns of Any City, USA would be bulldozed under and phoenixed into new forms.

Secondly, there’s the price. We’re being told it’s going to cost $160 million to raze and reconfigure the Major Besse Drive complex, and $112 million to renovate. Both seem like Brobdingnagian numbers to me. I went through a $50 million renovation before I retired from Lewis Mills HS, and that involved gutting the school, adding a huge wing, adding classrooms, offices, lavatories, new windows, and much, much more.

We’re also told that a new THS complex will be 21st century, but will it really? I drive past Litchfield HS and see a field of solar panels. Where are the solar panels for the proposed new THS? Will it be oriented south? Will it be a passive energy collector? Wind, geothermal utilized? Or will it just be another fancy box with improved insulation, multipaned windows, and an oil boiler?

I’m reading phrases like open spaces, communal learning, and more career pathways. BUT, none of those are new educational concepts. Moreover, THS had industrialized arts pathways in the past. Where did they go? Oliver Wolcott Tech is across the street. Why aren’t I hearing about a co-operative venture with the trades specialists? And despite some suggesting that hybrid-remote learning is a temporary thing due to COVID-19 — fact is, it shouldn’t be. More learning with less in person time can and should be done, as schools in countries like Germany have shown us for a long time. If taxpayers and educators want schools to serve as teen sitters, that’s another matter.

A key argument for building a new complex is that it’ll help keep more Torrington students in Torrington. But that wasn’t my experience in Region 10. We had outstanding programs, high state and national test scores, and a wonderfully renovated school.

But, we still lost students to the magnets, parochials, and preps. Some students just want to get away, start fresh, perhaps reinvent themselves. Despite new construction or renovation, THS will continue to lose students. When the first referendum on the current THS was defeated in 1958, the building committee came back with essentially the same school still including a swimming pool and more land, but they reduced the price by approximately 25 percent. If the current proposal fails on Nov. 3, I think most Torrington taxpayers expect to see similarly reduced numbers.

I go into THS several times a year. It always impresses me with just how good it looks and how much school pride is evidenced by the hanging artwork, murals, trophies, plaques, etc. on display everywhere. Truth be told, THS looks much better today than it did when it first opened in April 1963, and we young Raiders excitedly pushing in for the first time. I, for one, don’t want to see that school vanish.