By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — Results of a capacity study of Westport’s elementary schools suggest it might take more than redistricting students to right size the district.

The much-anticipated report illustrates the need for more classrooms than are now available, according to some Board of Education members.

“My concern is that we don’t have enough capacity across the whole district,” board Vice Chairwoman Liz Heyer said at Monday’s meeting.

Board member Robert Harrington, meanwhile, said the report shows the need to speed up the redistricting process and maybe add even more portable classrooms to Long Lots than the two recently authorized.

“This report is crying out for some action,” Harrington said.

More space needed to keep pace with rising enrollment?

The Space Inventory and Capacity Study was compiled by SLAM, an architectural firm that also conducted a district enrollment study that shows rising numbers. 

The study also comes as the district prepares to replace or rebuild Long Lots, one of its five elementary schools, and redraw district boundary lines.

The size and configuration of all five elementary schools are detailed and suggestions are made for what the schools would need to accommodate three, four or five classes per grade given the district’s current class size polices. The policy dictates that kindergarten through second grades can have only up to 22 students and third through fifth grade, 25 students.

As the principals of the five schools sat in the audience Monday, Mike Zuba, director of education planning for SLAM, called his process more art than a mathematical determination based on square footage of the five schools.

“It’s how things fit within the building itself,” Zuba said.

District-wide, there are 164 full-sized elementary classrooms of various sizes.

Of those, 121 are used as home rooms for some 2,416 students. Another 35 are used for specials like art, special education and other services. Six are used for pre-kindergarten and two as intensive resource classrooms.

Is that enough based on enrollment projections, Heyer asked Zuba.

“It seems like more than one school doesn’t have the basic number of classrooms to run the programs we would need to run,” said Heyer.

“The short answer is you can make it happen,” Zuba told her. Some services, however, might be shifted to carts rather than classrooms, he added.

Five radically different school buildings

The report details the facilities each elementary school has and how they are used.

The school district is striving for a consistent number of homerooms for each school, appropriate space for other services and at least one “flex” classroom per school to handle enrollment bubbles.

Zuba said flex rooms rarely get used.

• Long Lots, with 601 students, has 34 classrooms, but also several spaces on the lower level that are not in usable condition. The auditorium lobby is used for music instruction and as a staff workspace. The food service space is too small to accommodate one serving line for the largest lunch wave.

To meet future enrollment projections at Long Lots — to be replaced or renovated based on a pending decision — will need three more classrooms if enrollment is not shifted. The report acknowledges the board’s intention to redistrict.

• Coleytown Elementary, which houses the Stepping Stones preschool program, has 40 classrooms. There are 477 students and no auditorium. 

Growth in the pre-kindergarten program has displaced spaces used to support K-5 instruction. The intent is to relocate Stepping Stones to a new or renovated Long Lots.

This school is next in line for an upgrade after Long Lots.

• Kings Highway Elementary has 29 classrooms. Its gymnasium, stage and west wing are not American Disabilities Act accessible. 

The school’s support spaces are considered undersized and there is no dedicated conference room. To achieve a desired four-section per grade model would require two additional classrooms longterm.

The report suggests an addition or portable classrooms be added to Kings Highway, or enrollment be lowered through redistricting.

• Greens Farms Elementary has 31 classrooms. 

It can handle a four-section per grade model, but might need one additional classroom when art, music and science instruction are counted. That might be achieved by repurposing a portion of the cafeteria.

• Saugatuck Elementary has 30 classrooms, of which 22 are used for grade-level instruction. 

Still, there is a lack of small breakout spaces, and many specialists and support staff are in full-sized classrooms. The building can support a four-section per grade school, but would require some relocation of spaces.

Long Lots/Saugatuck balancing act not enough

The report suggests an opportunity to shift some students from Long Lots to Saugatuck.

Asked for advice about redistricting, Zuba recommended the district take the long view and determine its future strategy before it starts moving students.

Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice noted that shifting students between Long Lots and Saugatuck won’t address the imbalance between the town’s two middle schools since both of those elementary schools feed into Bedford.

He said the district has a great opportunity with Long Lots to right size the school.

Is Kings Highway building an embarrassment?

Harrington said that beyond an overcrowded Long Lots and underutilized Saugatuck, the report points to a need to take a closer look at Kings Highway.

“High-level observation, it is not conducive to modern learning,” Harrington said. “I don’t know how [the staff] work their magic in that building.”

Harrington called it an embarrassment.

Board Secretary Neil Phillips, whose children attended Kings Highway, disagreed.

As challenging as the physical plant was, Phillips said, teachers at the school were amazing.

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.