By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — By a 4-3 vote along party lines, the Board of Education voted Tuesday to ask town funding bodies for up to $600,000 to install two portable classrooms at Long Lots Elementary School.

Board members also indicated they would begin looking at redistricting to ease an enrollment imbalance that has left some schools with empty classrooms and others in need of more space.

Some board members pushed for changes as soon as next fall. Others said the fall of 2024 or 2025 is more likely.

Portable classrooms for Long Lots, the district’s largest elementary school that also is set to be rebuilt or replaced, would help buy the district time to develop a measured district-wide redistricting plan, Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice argued.

“Redistricting for September is not realistic,” Scarice said, adding that the district needs more time to do it the right way and avoid chaos.

Held remotely on Zoom, the meeting’s sole agenda item continued a debate that began at the board’s Dec. 19 meeting. Although the portables were already part of a capital projects proposal approved by the board in October, the panel agreed to revisit and formalize the funding request.

Funding for the modular classrooms is on the Board of Finance agenda Wednesday night. 

Modular classrooms vs. redistricting

In December, the board’s Republican members — Vice Chairwoman Liz Heyer, Dorie Hordon and Robert Harrington — all raised questions about the proposal.

They still had questions Tuesday and all ultimately voted against the funding request.

Heyer said spending money on modulars — up to $600,000 for four years — won’t solve overcrowding in the school. She wanted to know why district officials didn’t consider moving some programs over to Saugatuck Elementary School, where there are three empty classrooms.

“Can Stepping Stones [the district’s preschool program] move to Saugatuck?” Heyer asked.

Heyer also asked about the potential of Long Lots’ intensive resource classrooms being moved to the under-utilized school. She said she was not trying to single out a group, but was challenging the administration to look at options that would avoid spending money that she believes won’t solve Long Lots’ space problems.

Stepping Stones, which has six classrooms and several offices, absolutely could not be accommodated at Saugatuck, Assistant Supt. Michael Rizzo told Heyer.

The program is currently housed at Coleytown Elementary School, but the board plans to shift it to Long Lots once the school is rebuilt. That is not expected until the fall of 2026 or later.

As for Long Lots’ intensive resource rooms, where special education students spend part of their day, Rizzo said it would affect not just the students in the program but the highly trained classroom teachers who work with them.

“It would create chaos in what is a stable program,” he said. “I don’t advise it.”

Long Lots crowded, other schools not

Long Lots has 30 classroom sections this year. Principal Kimberly Ambrosio said several classes are one or two students away from having to be split because of their size. 

Recent enrollment projections suggest the school could have 33 sections before it is replaced.

Three of Long Lots’ classrooms are not used because of indoor air-quality concerns. The space crunch is such that the principal’s office is now used as a staff room and the principal has set up shop in a smaller space.

“We are making it work but in spaces that are less than idea,” said Ambrosio.

Harrington, who said he supports the administration in many areas, said it struck him that recommending a couple of portable classrooms at Long Lots lacks imagination.

“I don’t think it is fixing the problem,” he added, particularly since the modulars plan ignores space issues at other schools, such as Saugatuck.

Waiting for a capacity study could keep Saugatuck underpopulated for three years, Harrington added.

Hordon wondered why redistricting could not take place by next fall.

When Coleytown Middle School closed suddenly in the fall of 2018 because of mold problems, the entire student body was combined with Bedford Middle School “over a weekend,” she pointed out.

That was not a model response, but a reaction to an emergency, said board Chairwoman Lee Goldstein.

Goldstein said redistricting by next September would be irresponsible and chaotic.

Settle Long Lots’ future before redistricting

Before redistricting, Goldstein said she wants to know the final plan for Long Lots’ future,  and that Stepping Stones will end up there for certain.

“I want the whole picture before anyone moves,” Goldstein said.

Board Secretary Neil Phillips said he agreed the fall of 2023 would be too soon for redistricting. Maybe 2024, he suggested.

Scarice said redistricting in 2025 sounds better to him. He also challenged the idea that portable classrooms aren’t being creative.

They provide “continuity and avoid disruption,” Scarice said. “It’s a bridge to get us to the next phase.”

He also suggested redistricting could be phased in.

Board member Christina Torres said she would be against moving students twice in a timeframe of several years, but does support redistricting by 2024. She also supported using portables at Long Lots in the interim.

So did board member Kevin Christie. “This is in the best interest of our students,” he said.

RTM member raises concerns

Harrington pointed out that some disagree, including Lauren Karpf, chairwoman of the Representative Town Meeting’s Education Committee and the parent of a  Long Lots student.

Karpf sent two emails to the board, asking members to reconsider what she called a “problematic band-aid.”

“This appropriation for portables has me extremely concerned,” she wrote in a Jan. 2 email to the board.

Karpf called the plan short-sighted and not one that will solve the problems of overcrowding at Long Lots and unbalanced enrollment across the school district.

“In fact, it guarantees that we will have these problems for at least two more years,” Karpf wrote.

In an earlier email, Karpf said the proposed portables would be set on a playing field and basketball court used by students during recess.

 “Adding portables to their only play space doesn’t make sense to me,” she added.

Goldstein, who along with fellow Democrats Phillips, Torres and Christie voted for the plan, said she would not base her vote on how other elected officials might vote.

Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association.