School Board Expresses Concern Over SMARTR Proposal

Residents spent a large part of the public comment portion of Monday’s Board of Education meeting openly bemoaning a proposal presented by the task force assigned to determine a future path for Manchester Public Schools, and when the topic came up again later in the meeting school board members express a number of concerns themselves.

Under the plan, drafted by the School Modernization and Reinvestment Team Revisited (SMARTR) Committee and presented to the public for the first time Dec. 3, 2013, the town would establish a joint fifth/sixth grade academy at the site of the current Elisabeth M. Bennet Academy on Main Street, as well as expand and renovate two existing elementary schools "like new" while closing two others by the year 2020. In total, the projects would cost an estimated $100 million, with Manchester taxpayers responsible for about $40 million of those costs after state reimbursements.

The schools to be renovated and closed have not been formally determined by the Manchester Board of Education. 

“I do have a lot of concerns and I will continue to voice that a suggestion is a suggestion and we do have a policy in place,” said Maria Cruz, a Democratic member of the school board, who noted that the Board of Education established a policy for closing schools several years ago for just such a circumstance.

Cruz encouraged residents who had similar issues with the SMARTR Committee’s proposal to familiarize themselves with the BOE’s school closure policy.

Neal Leon, an independent member of the school board, said he had concerns because the SMARTR Committee was initially formed to address the dire state of Manchester’s public schools, but that the committee has since seemed to expand its scope to instead encompass a drastic reform of the town’s public education system.

“In my opinion, we’ve lost sight of the buildings,” Leon said. “…Our board has to stand up and make recommendations that are best for all the schools. I don’t want us to lose sight of that.”

Michael Crockett, a Republican member of the school board who also chairs the SMARTR Committee, said that the Board of Education would have to make some difficult choices in the near future, and that not everyone would be happy about them. Crockett said he thought it was important to the future of education in Manchester to implement the full SMARTR Committee’s proposal, but that the school board would be left with the tough task of determining which schools to close.

“SMARTR doesn’t make the decision to close the schools. We brought a plan forward showing you how it would work…the board of education makes the decision, this board makes the decision,” Crockett said. “This is the plan of the future. Someone’s not going to be happy. Some schools may get closed.”

Interim Superintendent Richard Kisiel said he thought it was “impossible” for the school board to determine which elementary schools it would elect to close before February, because there were still many unanswered questions from SMARTR’s proposal, including where students who attend the renovated elementary schools would be placed while construction was underway.

“Schools will close. You have to get over that hump first,” Kisiel said. “…You need the time to plan and think this through.”

Click here to see the SMARTR Committee full proposal.