Leng: Sale of school will help others stay open

HAMDEN — The town has reached a deal to sell Wintergreen School to Area Cooperative Educational Services for $16 million, Mayor Curt Balzano Leng announced Wednesday.

If all goes as planned, the proceeds will help keep two elementary schools open and also go toward renovating or replacing the Humphrey Fire House and renovating the Keefe Community Center.

“It’s infrequent that you have the opportunity to actually make change that’s gonna have generational investment and generational improvement for the entire community, and after you’re gone you will look back and say, ‘That helped a lot of families,’” Leng said during a press conference where he delivered the news.

The press conference took place at the district’s central offices on Putnam Avenue. Schools CFO Tom Ariola, Superintendent of Schools Jody Goeler, Board of Education Chairman M. Arturo PerezCabello and board Secretary Melinda Saller, who is running for town clerk on Leng’s ticket, sat alongside him.

The announcement, which comes two weeks before the mayor faces a contentious Democratic primary, paves the way for the reversal of a 2018 Board of Education vote to close Shepherd Glen and Church Street schools.

While that decision aimed to address racial imbalance and declining enrollment in the district, others said the closures would harm underserved residents.

Officials have reevaluated those plans in recent months, and Leng this summer came out in favor of keeping Church Street School open.

On the other hand, he had emerged in 2019 as a proponent of selling the building.

“I am so pleased to report that yesterday, I received a strong written offer for the purchase of Church Street School, one of the schools the Board of Education has chosen to close as an elementary school, from a fully financially viable and potentially strong community stakeholder; an offer which exceeds the $7,296,984 additional funds,” he wrote in a Facebook post that year. “These funds can be used to reduce short and long term borrowing costs and give our Town a once in a generation opportunity to transform the very face of Hamden public education.”

Asked about the 2019 statement, Leng said closing the schools was never his first choice. He originally opposed doing so, he said, but after the board explored its options and a 2019 attempt to sell Wintergreen failed, he “believed it was the best option that was on the table but not the best option for the town.”

He said he supported a sale only after the board voted to close Church Street School. He did not want the town to have a vacant building on its hands, he said.

Over the course of the pandemic and in hearing from Shepherd Glen and Church Street parents, “it became quite apparent that if we’re gonna be really proud of what we’re doing, keeping those two schools open is the end result we want,” Leng said.

Informing the board’s original vote to close the schools was that under state definitions, Church Street School is considered “racially imbalanced” and Shepherd Glen School has impending “racial imbalances.”

Under state guidelines, a school is considered “racially imbalanced” when the proportion of attendees who are students of color is higher or lower than the districtwide proportion of students of color by at least 25 percent.

Asked about an alternate plan to balance the schools, Goeler said the district has established a task force to explore other options such as controlled choice. He called it “a community-centered approach to balance schools.”

Goeler previously spoke with the New Haven Register of the district’s efforts to balance the schools. He said steps such as closing schools could inadvertently harm vulnerable communities.

Perez-Cabello, the school board chairman, also chimed in. “The board is fully committed to de-segregating our schools,” he said. “We’ve also been really trying to do it in a way that goes beyond the archaic and outdated definitions of diversity and race that the state uses to more comprehensive definitions of diversity.”

The board’s 2018 vote also took into account the need for repairs at Shepherd Glen. To solve that problem, Leng recommended funds from the Wintergreen sale be used to renovate the school.

Such a renovation was expected to cost $25 million when the board unsuccessfully pursued it in 2015. Ariola, the district CFO, warned the estimate likely is outdated.

If approved, state funding would reimburse the town for roughly two-thirds of the cost.

Leng expressed confidence about getting state aid.

“I think they’re gonna be pleased to know that we have money in hand and a plan in place,” he said.