Jefferson tour impresses some

NORWALK, Conn. – It’s a game of 15 minutes, Jefferson Elementary School Principal Nicholas Brophy said last week, as he escorted Common Council members, Board of Education members and Mayor Harry Rilling on a tour of the notoriously overcrowded conditions at the school.

You’ve heard all about the 10 portable classrooms at the school, but Brophy and Norwalk Public Schools Director of Facilities Bill Hodel lingered in the combination gymnasium/cafeteria/auditorium for a bit, as Brophy described his effort, as a new principal last summer, to create a new lunch schedule so children are not lingering and “escalating” their behaviors.

Rather than have people eating in both sides of the multipurpose area, Brophy and his staff created “a game of every other quarter of the hour,” shifting the entry times for the kids.

“I can only have so many eating hours in the day, so when the Ks and the 1s are eating together, there are 200-plus people having lunch in here. That’s a tall order,” Brophy said.

City leaders were invited to the school by the School Governance Council, as decisions are pondered regarding the BoE’s request to build two new schools, versus the “Fix it First” plan promoted by State Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-25).

At least one person was swayed by the conditions at Jefferson, a linchpin in the argument to address overcrowding as it was built for 400 kids but houses 600.

“What strikes me is in almost every single place we visited you have exposed storage, everywhere,” Council member Steve Serasis (D-District A) said. “…You not only have too many students here, but you have too much stuff, that’s in front and in plain view and detracts from the classroom itself.  So, there are two things that are seriously wrong with the overcrowding.”

Jefferson was made a science magnet school in 2007-08, BoE Facilities Committee Chairman Mike Barbis said, because the racial balance of the school was far too heavy toward minorities and out of compliance with state mandates.

While there’s still interest from parents in the magnet aspect, there are only 50 students considered part of the magnet school and the lottery is closed, except to siblings of current students, Brophy said.

“In terms of the classes, I cannot in good conscience bring other students in,” Brophy said.

Jefferson benefits from strong partnerships with the Maritime Aquarium and the Stepping Stones Museum for Children, and its teachers get more professional development in science than at other schools, but it is struggling for space for a science lab, Brophy said.

Early this school year it was said that there was no lab, but Brophy said it was “in transition,” as furniture was moved into a room that became available because there are four fourth-grade classrooms with 24 students each. If all the third graders stay at the school, the science lab might have to move to the music room, he said.

The school is “amazing,” because faculty and administrators have done an “amazing” job, Brophy said, standing at the doors that children use to get to the portables.

Children come and go in torrential rain storms or in icy-cold conditions, he said.

“When a child has to run a message, or go to nurse, the classroom teacher is not able to walk them through. They are older and they can do that,” Brophy said.

The doors are locked for security purposes and children must be buzzed in, he said.

Council members asked if a covered walkway was possible; Hodel said NPS had a bad experience with canvas walkways blowing away at Ponus Ridge Middle School, but there had never been one at Jefferson.

There were eight portables and when the addition was built onto Rowayton Elementary School the two portables that had been there were moved to Jefferson, Hodel said.

They were all built in 2001 and stored “in a warehouse for six years before they even came here,” Hodel said. The two new additions are on a lower part of the school yard, necessitating an ejector pump for the sewage line, he said.

There was a stoppage in the pipe the previous week because some student tossed in things that shouldn’t have been there, but that’s been cleared, he said.

Barbis recently mentioned raccoons in the portables; Hodel said there was one, maybe two, seen going under a portable. An exterminator was called and the raccoons have not returned, he said.

The portables did have an upside: they all had doors. Classrooms in the main building are formed with partitions that were built into the school for occasional use. Rooms meant to be one classroom is being used as three classrooms, some with a resource room in the middle.

Gym classes are sometimes held in classrooms, using Dance Revolution, Be Fit or similar programs.

Serasis said he’d seen violins stored in a hallway.

Violins classes are held on the stage, Brophy said, agreeing with Serasis’ observations about “every single piece of things that the teachers need and use in plain sight.”

“My heart goes out to you with what you have to work with here and what has to be done here should take almost immediate attention,” Serasis said.

Heading out the door, Council member Rich Bonenfant (R-At Large) said, “portables didn’t look too bad. They didn’t smell moldy and they were clean. They were doing a good job.”