Booker T. Weighs Hamden Move

Booker T. Washington Academy, a charter school in search of a permanent location, is eyeing a Hamden school that’s about to empty out.

After moving between the city’s old parochial schools for its first five years, Booker T. Washington Academy (BTWA) is ready to settle down in one spot.

With few options available in New Haven at the moment (except maybe Strong School’s current spot in the Hill that some parents want to see converted into administrative offices), the decision might mean a move across town lines, where Hamden’s Church Street School is also being vacated.

BTWA’s board of directors voted this spring to send a ​“letter of intent” to Hamden’s town government about its interest in a purchasing the school.

But the school’s leader stresses that BTWA is still far off from making any final decisions.

During a break from new teacher orientation last week, BTWA’s executive director, John Taylor, said he’s looking forward to buying the school a space of its own.

That would mean striking six-figure payments for rent and taxes from the budget and relieving the demand for new space that sent them scrambling this summer.

But it would also mean negotiating with elected officials, school superintendents and, possibly, even the State Board of Education.

As the growing school faces one of its biggest decisions yet, Taylor said he’s clear on one point.

“We do not want to be anything but a New Haven school,” Taylor said. ​“We weren’t chartered to be anything other than that, to serve students primarily in the Dixwell and Newhallville corridor. That was the mission from the very beginning, and that hasn’t changed nor will it.

“I think we now are part of the fabric of New Haven. People know who we are, and they intentionally seek us out as an option for their children. I feel good about that,” he added. ​“The permanent location, it would be nice to be somewhere we can say is ours. That’s — I don’t want to call it that — but ​‘the American dream’ with a school.”

Asked what a move to Hamden would mean for its enrollment, Taylor said he’d been advised by state officials not to even speculate. He said a move to Hamden, if it happened, would need to be confirmed by the State Board of Education through an amendment to BTWA’s charter management agreement.

BTWA, a charter school that’s planning to add a sixth grade this year on top of the 360 students it taught last year, has already outgrown two buildings.

It first moved out of the 24,000-square-feet St. Michael’s school in Wooster Square in 2016, but now it can’t fit into the 45,000-square-feet St. Stanislaus’s school on Upper State Street either, after even turning the cafeteria into a classroom.

“That’s the cost of doing business as a charter school,” he said. ​“Charter schools aren’t part of any system; therefore, they’re responsible for their own facilities. We’d like to see that go away. The facility issue has always been one of the biggest issues.”

This summer, he proposed moving the middle school into the now-shuttered New Light School on Wooster Place, promising to fix up the school in the first year and then pay $100,000 in rent each year after. But after a contractor said their expansion plans might disturb asbestos that could’ve doubled their bill with abatement costs.

After a continued search, Taylor eventually decided to rent out the former Hyde Leadership Academy on Circular Drive in Hamden.

Having those buildings lined up takes off the pressure to make any quick decisions, he said.

“Because we have this space, we could stay here in perpetuity. There’s nothing that says we have to get out of here, now that we have found classes for the older grades. There’s no urgency,” Taylor said.

“But at some point, as executive director, I would love to see us own some property so we can get some equity. It makes us more financially viable if we own our own space and have some leverage there,” he went on. ​“Right now, the taxes alone” — that the church has to pay because it’s profiting from a non-religious use — ​“are the equivalent of four teachers.”

Hamden: Accepting Offers

Soon, Hamden will have two empty schools on its hands.

The town’s Board of Education voted to close Church Street School, as part of a larger plan, known as 3R, to address a racial imbalance, introduce universal pre-kindergarten program and create a magnet program, which, unlike New Haven’s inter-district magnet schools, will open only to town residents.

Earlier this summer, in mid-June, Hamden Mayor Curt Leng said that the negotiations to sell Church Street School were still preliminary.

At the time, he declined to specify the buyer and the offered price.

Without disclosing those details, Leng said that selling the building could be ​“a major win” for the town’s budget and the neighborhood’s ​“quality of life.” He said proceeds from the sale could help fund the town’s capital investments in renovating its schools as part of the 3R program.

“Divesting of a Town asset like Church Street School is not a decision that will be made without due diligence and involvement from the community,” Mayor Leng wrote. ​“We will ensure that the sale price is one that has been fully vetted and of course we will seek the approval of the BOE to release the building from their ownership.

“If not for the immediacy of the 3R application submission, required by the state, I wouldn’t be talking about this offer publicly, but it is directly related to the potential overall approval because the sale proceeds have the potential of reducing the short and long term expense of the school renovation costs,” he continued.

Leng added that he believes the school board is ​“conceptually in support of the sale offer” and willing to forgo plans to move administrators into Church Street School.

He said that any sale would not affect students this coming school year, giving the school board more time ​“to plan how Church Street students can be best served in the future.”

“In the near future, the interested buyer is looking forward to the opportunity to meet with the Church Street neighborhood and show how it can be an active, key stakeholder,” Mayor Leng concluded.

Taylor said that he didn’t want to get ahead of himself and limit the school’s options.

“We haven’t even had an official conversation with anybody. We kicked the tires [in Hamden], but we haven’t stopped from continuing the search locally,” he said. ​“There’s so many variables”

He said that he’s waiting to see what New Haven chooses to do after its upcoming move — an oblique reference to Strong School’s move out of its Orchard Street swing space. Next year, they’ll head into the Barack H. Obama Magnet University School, a $36 million building at 69 Farnham Ave. on Southern Connecticut State University’s campus.

“We’re in line for that,” he said. ​“You never know.”