Supporters of the proposed plan, which is set at a cost of $40,879,191—$32,597,202 for the cost of the new building and a little over $8.28 million for construction costs to the existing middle/high school building—say that this is the most cost efficient solution to an area that continues to see declining enrollment to the point where more seats in the classrooms are empty than filled.
Region 12 Superintendent Pat Cosentino said some classrooms only have seven or eight students, while a kindergarten class for one of the schools—Burnham School in Bridgewater—only has four students enrolled for next year. She continued that such small class sizes do not provide a positive social experience for kids.
“I am really proud of the work that Region 12 has done on this issue,” Cosentino said. “It has been going on since the spring of 2011 and is the best solution for the rising cost, declining enrollment and decreasing population.”
After state aid of approximately $5 million is added to the project if it passes, Cosentino said taxpayers would only be responsible for $35.15 million. By town, Bridgewater would be responsible for 22 percent of that cost, Roxbury would pay 32.7 percent of it and Washington would cough up just over 45 percent of the cost at $7.72 million, $11.5 million and $15.94 million respectively. The percentage each town is responsible for is decided by how many students they would have enrolled at the school—with a total enrollment of 774 students, Bridgewater has 170 students, Roxbury has 253 and Washington has the bulk of students at 351 kids.
Roxbury’s First Selectman Barbara Henry echoed residents’ concerns that perhaps the two should be kept as separate questions rather than as one single yes/no question. She said that she doesn’t know how the vote would go down in Roxbury but that she knows Bridgewater has said they will vote down the plan for a new consolidated elementary school. Each of the three towns has to approve the consolidation by a plurality of 50 percent plus one so one town’s dissension would vote down the entire plan.
“We cannot sustain what we are doing today financially,” Henry said. “Something’s gotta give—if it’s not at the elementary level, than it has to be at the high school level. If this gets voted down, all of the options have to come back to the table.”
Henry said those options might be moving all of the students off of the Shepaug campus—moving the sixth grade back to each of the town’s elementary schools, moving the seventh and eighth grade at the high school to Washington Primary School and vouchering out the high school students to high schools in surrounding schools that could stand to see an increase in their own enrollment.
Despite strong opposition in one of the three towns, Cosentino remains hopeful.
“I am confident and hopeful that when people see all of the information that it will pass in all three towns,” Cosentino said. “We have a building on the campus. It doesn’t interfere with any of our athletic fields. It has the ability to be expanded. I’m very proud of it.”
“I am confident and hopeful that when people see all of the information that it will pass in all three towns,” Cosentino said. “We have a building on the campus. It doesn’t interfere with any of our athletic fields. It has the ability to be expanded. I’m very proud of it.”
A date has yet to be set for the referendum but a previous prediction by Cosentino was around the first week of April. If the referendum passes, the consolidated elementary school would open in August 2017 and construction on the middle/high school would begin this summer.-
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