New Walsh School Contemplated

Branford school officials know that they are working on a band-aid approach as they await a compliance report that will or will not let them install a section of walls for the entering fifth-grade class at Walsh Intermediate School. Behind the scenes, they say they are also seriously moving ahead with a new intermediate school, a Walsh with walls. 

Walsh, built in 1972 in the heyday of the open-school style, is characterized by classrooms without walls. The emphasis is on open space and community sharing that largely depended upon a teaching approach that never quite took off, Board of Education Chair Frank Carrano said in an interview. Most of the open school style schools are now gone, he added. Now Carrano is thinking about a more traditionally designed school.

Last week, the Board of Education (BOE, pictured) heard updates on the status of soundproofing for a block of 10 fifth-grade classrooms. Schools Superintendent Hamlet Hernandez told the board that fire and building inspectors reviewed a plan to install walls and found the plan lacking. The major concern centered on emergency hallway access.

Hernandez told the board that a code compliance officer would soon be at the school to determine if the fifth-grade section of the building could be renovated. The superintendent said he had asked that the report be in writing. If this section gets the go-ahead, he said he would determine a budget for architectural drawings and for the project itself, believed to be in the $100,000 range.  Click here to read an earlier story on Walsh with walls.

At the meeting Carrano asked Hernandez, what might happen if the school received approval for the first ten classrooms, and then the following year, ​“we want to do the rest of the school. That might also generate, or trigger, a requirement that we have to bring the whole school up to code,” he said.

“It is getting much more complicated than initially it seemed to be,” he observed in an interview. 

“The way it works is that as new requirements are made on school buildings an existing school building is not required to upgrade to those new requirements. However, if you build a new school, they have to meet those requirements or if you renovate a school beyond a certain level then the entire school needs to be brought up to code and that could involve a considerable amount of money.” 

At this juncture, school officials don’t yet know where they stand on where their ​“renovation” falls in relation to bringing the entire school up to code. If it is small enough it is likely to be approved. They expect to learn more over the next two weeks.

Asked about the possibility of a new Walsh school, Carrano said ​“that is a real possibility and that is one reason why I am going to organize a facilities committee at our June meeting to look at Walsh and at Sliney.” The John B. Sliney Elementary school also needs renovation. 

“The two schools most in need are Sliney and Walsh and I think it is very possible that the best solution for Walsh might be a new school. I am not opposed to that at all. It is something I have been talking to people about for quite a while.” However, discussions have not led the BOE to add Walsh to the school’s capital budget proposals over the years. 

Carrano said he would like the town’s help. ​“What I would like to put on the table for consideration is for the town to take over Walsh and turn it into a multi ‑government facility. It could house a senior center, a counseling center and other town facilities in that building. It is ideally situated for that. You could even bring the recreation department in because there is a gym.” In exchange for saving funds for say a new senior center facility, the town could help pay defray the costs for Walsh and for whatever is decided regarding Sliney, Carrano suggested. 

He said he thought Branford could get between 35 and 37 percent reimbursement from the state for a new building. ​“And if we designed a building with some unique energy features, we might qualify for certain grants.”

“So you are thinking seriously about this,” the Eagle asked. ​“I am, yes.” Hernandez also told the Eagle in an interview after the meeting that Walsh might just be nearing its historical end. He echoed Carrano’s words that a new intermediate school was the way to go.

Carrano added: ​“At this point you have to really weigh the advisability of investing a lot of money in a facility that still may not end up being what you need or want.

“I would like to put it all on the table and see where it goes. Hopefully it will engender a conversation and we can come up with a plan,” he added. He said it was his belief that Walsh has ​“outlived its usefulness.”

During this school year groups of parents discussed walls for Walsh with officials. Heavy publicity came after a group of Mary R. Tisko elementary school parents, a feeder school for Walsh, did an end run around school officials, petitioning the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) for help in getting walls for Walsh. The RTM has no authority over school issues, especially since this item wasn’t even in the 2012 – 13 education budget. But sending the petition to the RTM resulted in publicity and a promise by the BOE to look into the matter.

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