Community Sounds Off On Plan to Close Nathan Hale

The Board of Education has certainly had a lot of opportunities to since a facilities report identified it as in need of costly, urgent repairs just over two weeks ago. 

But Wednesday night the community had their first chance to voice their opinion about the possibility of closing the school - and the majority pleaded with the school board to do all it could to keep the neighborhood school up and running. 

"The school boiler at Nathan Hale can be addressed for safety and efficiency without closing Nathan Hale for an extended period of time," Manchester resident Eileen Sweeney told the school board during a public meeting Wednesday. "Closing Nathan Hale for an extended period of time would negatively impact the people in that community who can least afford it." 

The Spruce Street school, built in 1921 and still using many of its original systems, has been identified by Facilities Manager Richard Ziegler as , with aging boiler and heating systems that are liable to fail at any moment and necessitate the closing of the school. Ziegler told the school board during a report at its Jan. 9 meeting that a simple "short-term" fix to replace those systems would take about eight months and cost the school system about $1.05 million, but recommended a "like-new" renovation for the school at the cost of an estimated $20 million if it was going to continue to be used as an educational facility. 

Pressed for time and money to make those repairs, the school board has instead proposed closing or taking the school "off-line" next year and scattering its students throughout the town's nine other public schools until plans and money for the repairs could be put in place. Board members sought to gain public feedback on the proposal during a special budget workshop Wednesday night. About 50 people attended the meeting held in a room of the freshmen wing of Manchester High School. 

But many of the residents who spoke at the meeting, mostly parents of students who attend Nathan Hale or stakeholders in the neighborhood who would be affected by the closing, said they were concerned that if the school were closed, even temporarily, it might never be reopened, with some even questioning whether members of the school board or town government had a biases against the school (two years ago the Board of Education considered closing Nathan Hale due to poor test scores). 

"I'm disappointed in the Board of Education because I as a taxpayer voted for the Highland Park referendum and they're getting a new school," said Curtisea Anderson, a parent whose children attend Nathan Hale, which she said seems to always be low on the school board's list of priorities; voters approved a pair of referendums in 2008 and 2010 to spend $13.1 million for a "like-new" . "As a parent, I don't want to hear it anymore. I want you to fix the school." 

Alisha Lockhart, another parent of a Nathan Hale student, said that closing the school would harm the neighborhood that surrounds it, and that the neighborhood could not afford to lose the school. 

"We are low income parents and the neighborhood is going down, it is deteriorating," Lockhart told the school board. "The parents are concerned. We want to know what's going to happen to our children." 

Board of Education members seem in consensus that the school cannot open as is next school year, but still remain torn on whether to close it permanently, merely replace the piping and boiler systems, or renovate it "like-new." 

Closing the school permanently would likely be the least costly option, but would result in a shifting of those displaced students throughout the other elementary schools in town and a possible redistricting of the town's elementary system; taking the school "off-line" to replace just the boiler and heating systems would still likely result in the school being closed for the 2012-13 school year, cost about $1.05 million, but in many ways would only serve as a "bandaid" as many other problems with the school would still remain, such as leaky windows and a faulty ventilation system; while the "like-new" renovation would be by far the costly option - estimated at upwards of $20 million - would have to be bonded for and approved by public referendum, and could take as long as four years to complete. 

Board of Education members pointed to a Jan. 30 joint meeting with the Board of Directors, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. in the Lincoln Center Hearing Room, 494 Main St., where the situation would be addressed further and a likely course of action identified. 

"I'm not willing to be a board down the road that is blamed for repairs that haven't occurred," said Kelly Luxenberg, a Democratic member of the school board. "Enough is enough. Let's come up with a plan and let's go."  

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