SCHOOL BUILDING PROJECTS ‘ON TIME AND ON BUDGET’
District: Progress on schedule despite COVID-based complications
NEW FAIRFIELD — Despite some supply chain problems resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the district’s two school building projects are moving along.
“Both the Consolidated project and the high school project remain on time and on budget,” said the school district’s business and operations director, Rich Sanzo.
Funding for a $29.2 million Consolidated Early Learning Academy and $84.2 million new high school were approved by taxpayers in October 2019, with some costs offset by state funding.
With construction bids within the total allocated project budget, work on the learning academy broke ground in June and construction on the high school commenced a few months later.
Although the construction schedule for Consolidated Early Learning Academy has been in flux, primarily due to supply chain delays, Sanzo said the town’s Permanent Building Committee and project team were recently able to secure roofing materials sooner than anticipated.
“As a result, the updated schedule is now projecting that Consolidated will open on time,” he said.
The roughly 44,000-square-foot elementary school is expected to be finished by the start of the 2022-23 school year, and the 143,000 squarefoot new high school is slated to open the following year.
Although things are currently on track, Sanzo said supply chain constraints still pose “some risk” to the Consolidated construction schedule.
“We’ve talked to the (Permanent Building Committee) and the project team and they know that by the middle to end of January, we need to have full confidence in the opening
for the fall,” he said.
Not only are there school calendar implications — whether schools will open before or after Labor Day next year — but budgetary and programmatic implications as well, “as we look to plan for bringing two schools together on one campus,” Sanzo said.
Sanzo said the Permanent Building Committee is continuing to “work the schedule” to keep the project on track.
“Both the Consolidated Early Learning Academy and New Fairfield High School building projects are progressing at a rapid pace,” Superintendent Pat Cosentino said in a Dec. 17 newsletter. “Anyone visiting our school campuses will notice that they are buzzing with activity on a daily basis with excavation, concrete pours, and steel erection taking place.”
With its steel superstructure nearly complete, the outline of the Consolidated Early Learning Academy can be seen at the Meeting House Hill School campus.
Preschool through fifth grade students and staff recently had the chance to leave their mark by signing a ceremonial beam that officially became part of the new elementary school during a steel-topping ceremony last Friday.
“High school and middle school students will have the same opportunity in the future when steel begins to be erected on the high school site,” Sanzo said.
Steel for the new high school is expected to arrive after winter break, according to Cosentino.
The original plan for the high school project changed last year after the town purchased a 2-acre property at 78 Gillotti Road, which allowed for what Permanent Building Committee member Anthony Yorio described as an “optimal building design” and more cost-efficient plan.
The town used $325,000 from its unappropriated capital and non-recurring account to acquire the property, and the Permanent Building Committee reduced the school’s construction budget to offset the purchase.
With 78 Gillotti Road, the new high school will be constructed on a total of three parcels — the others being 54 and 74 Gillotti Road.
There have been some traffic pattern changes, but Sanzo said “internal school operations” at the high school have not been disrupted by construction work. The new school is being built next door to the existing high school.
Not only will the new learning academy and high school address infrastructure problems, Sanzo said, but they’ll create opportunities to introduce educational programs that the district hasn’t been able to have due to lack of space in its current facilities.
As construction progresses on the new schools, Cosentino said teachers, students and administrators have been actively involved in the “furniture, fixture, and equipment phase” of the projects.
She said “traveling classrooms” have been set up inside the high school’s library learning commons to give staff and students the chance to try out learning environments, and the Consolidated School cafeteria is currently filled with samples of early childhood furniture.
“Staff are meeting with the design team to articulate needs and explore ideas on how to best outfit instructional spaces,” Cosentino said. “The feedback has been phenomenal with excitement growing for the opening of the new schools.”