Manufacturing Lab Cut From Cross

The city’s public school district has scrapped plans to build a new manufacturing pathway lab at Wilbur Cross High School over concerns around contractor timeline and building space, and will be partnering instead with a Fair Haven manufacturing training nonprofit.

ABM Executive Director of Facilities Jamar Alleyne, whose firm works with New Haven Public Schools (NHPS), provided that update and change of plans during Tuesday’s latest Board of Education Finance and Operations Committee meeting.

Alleyne reported that Milestone Construction Services had been contracted to do a two-fold project for NHPS, building out manufacturing labs at Wilbur Cross High School and Hillhouse High School.

However, he said, due to timeline concerns and struggles with spatial needs, the plans for the Cross lab have been cut. The Cross portion of the project came at a cost of $1,014,499. That amount of money will now be credited back to NHPS. 

School leaders clarified on Tuesday that Cross will still offer its manufacturing pathway to students, but through a partnership with Fair Haven’s Manufacturing and Community Technical Hub (MATCH). An agreement costing $84,155 with MATCH was also approved during Tuesday’s meeting.

All of this comes as the Elicker administration and NHPS are also figuring how to use one-time federal pandemic relief aid to build out a vocational training hub for public school students that could offer tracks in building, manufacturing, technology, health, and transportation.

An additional $124,967.97 credit from Milestone will also be returned from the Hillhouse portion of the project, due to less electrical work needed than initially arranged. The Tuesday change order also noted additions to the Hillhouse project scope related to replacing additional flooring, clearing drainage lines, and increased work needed in the compressor room. 

After all of those credits and additions are taken into account for both the scrapped Cross program and the changed Hillhouse work, NHPS will receive a total credit of $1,080,639.90. That funding will be returned to the district’s ARPA ESSER account, a pot of funds stemming from a one-time flood of federal pandemic-relief aid.

The space once designated for Cross’s manufacturing lab, meanwhile, will continue to host its current use, which is the school’s auto shop. 

The change order will next go to the full board for approval. 

When explaining the decision to drop the Cross in-school manufacturing lab, NHPS Supt. Madeline Negrón told the committee on Tuesday, ​“It was going to have a significant impact on the auto shop program, which again has been longstanding, and it would’ve had an impact to that programming. It was a tough decision but I think the best decision on how we can maintain both programs, manufacturing and auto shop, while still giving our students the best experience that they need as they are getting to their junior and senior years.”

The new MATCH partnership, meanwhile, will allow juniors and seniors to gain hands-on manufacturing skills at MATCH’s 25,000 square foot lab in Fair Haven and from its instructors. Students will gain access to machines that Hillhouse’s lab has not yet secured, like drill presses. The MATCH agreement also includes training for three NHPS staffers to learn manufacturing instruction. 

The district has been working for the past three years to build out the manufacturing labs, Science Department Supervisor Robert McCain told the committee Tuesday. He added that the year-long partnership with MATCH will allow the district to continue its work providing students with manufacturing opportunities despite not yet having an in-district lab. 

Alleyne estimated Tuesday that Hillhouse’s lab will be completed by Dec. 1. He added that the only expended funds that NHPS spent on the now-cut Cross project were for the design process.