By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — The plan to install two modular classrooms at Long Lots Elementary School stalled Wednesday when the Board of Finance failed to approve a $600,000 appropriation for the classrooms, despite pleas from the Board of Education chairwoman and superintendent of schools.

Finance board members hesitated to vote for the classroom appropriation without first considering other options, such as moving some Long Lots students to other schools with spare classroom space, which would require “spot redistricting,” according to Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice.  

“It seems like spending $600,000 on additional teachers would be one thing, but not on portables when we have capacity in other schools,” said board member Lee Caney.

“Putting in modulars when we have capacity elsewhere does look a bit odd,” finance member Brian Stern agreed. “I don’t feel ready to vote on this tonight.”

The appropriation was approved a night earlier by the Board of Education, with the panel’s majority Democrats supporting the plan in a 4-3 party line vote.

The 70-year-old Long Lots, with the largest enrollment among the town’s five elementary schools, is slated either to be renovated or replaced, depending on a final recommendation by the Long Lots Building Committee.

Improve air quality, eliminate modulars

A speaker during the public comment portion of the board’s meeting in Town Hall suggested another alternative to the modulars plan.

Jim Keplesky, regional manager of AtmosAir, of Fairfield, said his business could restore proper air ventilation to three Long Lots classrooms that currently are not used because of poor air quality.

If successful, that could provide space needed to accommodate Long Lots’ growing enrollment and eliminate the need to lease modular classrooms

AtmosAir, according to Keplesky, had improved classroom air quality in the New Rochelle, N.Y., school district, and a room in the Westport Library. 

The business could bring the unused Long Lots classrooms “back to full use for 95 percent less than the cost of the portable classrooms. I’m certain we can make these three classrooms usable again,” he said.

All solutions for the overcrowded school should be considered before spending money on portable classrooms, finance board members agreed, and told Keplesky to give his contact information to Scarice.

School board split questioned

What concerned Board of Finance members the most, however, was that Board of Education members had voted 4-3 to purchase the modular classrooms Tuesday, and that the three dissenting members, all Republicans, had major reasons for objecting to the proposal. 

“Our hesitation is that three Board of Ed members, including one person from the RTM Education Committee,  are against it. I have trepidation,” Caney said.

“Is it right for us to hear both sides” of the school board discussion, asked James Foster, vice chairman of the finance board.

Finance members had received emails urging them not to approve the appropriation after the Board of Education vote, an action that angered school board Chairwoman Lee Goldstein. 

Goldstein also questioned finance board members’ concern that her board’s vote wasn’t unanimous. Nothing would get accomplished, she said, “if every decision has to be unanimous.”

Long Lots Elementary School is very overcrowded, she argued, saying the decision to add two additional portable classrooms is “a decision that best serves the students and the faculty.”

Is educational experience “equal” among schools?

Goldstein and Scarice also refuted a claim by Board of Finance member Sheri Gordon, who said that portable classrooms would not provide as good an educational experience as standard classrooms, and that the education Westport students get at the elementary schools varies between schools. 

Gordon said she is concerned about “the equity piece” of education at Westport’s elementary schools. “As an attorney, I am worried that they are not delivering the same education” at every school, she said.

The idea that the education children receive is not equal among local schools is absolutely untrue, Goldstein countered. “At the core, all of our children are having the same education,” she said.

Scarice had started discussion of the Long Lots appropriation by calling the plan to add portable classrooms “an interim intervention.”

The plan, he said, would provide immediate relief to  overcrowding at Long Lots; be less disruptive than other plans such as redistricting, and give the school district time to come up with a permanent plan on whether to rebuild or remodel the school. 

But the superintendent’s reasons weren’t enough to persuade the Board of Finance — at least not Wednesday night. 

The board voted unanimously to table the vote on the $600,000 appropriation while other possible solutions to resolve overcrowding at the school are reviewed. 

Board members anticipate scheduling a meeting before the beginning of February to discuss the Long Lots appropriation again.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist and journalism teacher for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman newspaper for 10 years