Florita Gillespie and Curlena MacDonald spent years helping to bring a community center to the Dwight School. Now they feel burned — and they’re determined to salvage some of the neighborhood’s hard work.
The Dwight activists were among the neighbors who attended a management team meeting Tuesday night at Troup School. The meeting focused on a recent decision by the Board of Ed and the Citywide School Construction Committee to surplus and likely sell the Dwight School, a property in which neighbors have invested so much.
Gillespie (at left in photo) and Curlena McDonald (at right) said they feel completely left out of the decision to close and sell the school. The city made that decision in the face of a budget crisis.
“Can we reverse the decision?” Gillespie, chairwoman of the management team, called out at the meeting. Attendees nodded in the affirmative. With the echoes of the recent presidential election in mind, Gillespie declared, “Yes we can.”
MacDonald, Gillespie, and Dwight Alderwoman Gina Calder (at right in photo with activist Ruth Henderson) have long known that the Dwight and Troup schools would be consolidated, with Dwight children being sent to the newly renovated Troup building.
But they expected the empty Dwight building to be renovated and used for swing space by the Board of Ed. That was the original plan, before the quick new decision made in the midst of a budget crisis.
“So we figured,” said Calder, “that we had two years to make plans, to line up funders, to buy the building back, if necessary, particularly the new addition, for a community center.”
In February, however, they learned that Dwight would not be renovated. “We made overtures,” Calder said, “expressing an interest in buying the building, particularly the new addition.”
But they didn’t hear from officials.
“As recently as the summer,” said McDonald, “we had our kids through a program surveying the neighbors to see what kinds of programs were needed, to what use the community center should be put. We were surprised to learn about the sale of the building and no one spoke to us as possible buyers.”
“It was a complete surprise,” said Calder.
“We weren’t called to the table at all,” said McDonald. She and Calderwere informed about the decision a few weeks earlier and read about the decision to surplus Dwight in the Register.
What particularly gnarled long-time activist McDonald, the vice chair of the team, was how much effort she and the Greater Dwight Development Corporation had put into the school. Particularly the new addition. It has been used for the last several years as a community space.
“Between 1999 and 2006, we developed a community-wide plan, partnered with Yale, the city and the state, and raised $2.4 million,” she said, “and finished our projects.” These included bringing the Shaw’s supermarket to the under-served Dwight area; a Montessori daycare facility on Edgewood; the office for the Dwight corporation in the same building; and, the soaring light-filled gymnasium addition to the school, which was constructed with the help of Yale architectural talent.
Now the community is poised to act, even if the horse, or some part of the horse, has already left the barn.
“I know who some of the interested buyers are” for the Dwight School, Calder claimed. “I don’t want to reveal who they are except to say that one is progressive; one is, shall we say, a service provider. My next steps will be to talk to them. The goal is to preserve the school, or at minimum, the addition so the community can have access to it.”
She said the Greater Dwight Development Corporation has a history of coming to the table with plans, and with money. “We may be late, but we’re coming,” she said.
Calder stressed that she and her aldermanic colleague Yusuf Shah (not present due to illness) would not speak up unless the community is behind them. That’s when Gillespie enlisted the collective “Yes we can.”
Calder acknowledged the Dwight is part of the city’s attempt to fix the gaping and growing budget gap, but she called it a short-sighted one. She cautioned her constituents that there are other delayed and canceled projects. “My idea is also to talk to the Board [of Aldermen] about using these other buildings as a network of community centers. We desperately need programs, and a decentralized system is what we need, not a single type Q House in one neighborhood. These schools could be put to these uses.”
Where might some of the money come for the community centers?
“We have lots of development going on in New Haven. I don’t see why we can’t say to developers as part of their commitment to New Haven: Would you please by way of a community benefit give $500,000 or a million for this community center? These centers particularly will help kids. The streets will be safer, the new businesses’ windows won’t get broken, and they’ll have a better trained work force.”
Once the Board of Ed has turned the building over to the city, it is up to the Board of Aldermen to decide on the disposition of the property, whether for sale, demolition, or other alternative.
Stay tuned.