School Board Approves EHS Location For Consolidated High School

After lengthy discussion, the Enfield Board of Education voted Tuesday night to approve the current site as the location for the forthcoming consolidated high school.

Following the motion by board member Chuck Johnson, the panel unanimously voted 8-0 for the Enfield Street location. Board member Peter Jonaitis was absent from the meeting.

In April 2011, the school board voted to consolidate the town's two high schools into a single facility after years of declining enrollments.

After nearly 40 minutes of discussing the pros and cons of both the Enfield and high school sites Tuesday, the board appeared to be leaning toward holding a special meeting on Jan. 18 to further discuss the matter.

The Jan. 18 special meeting had been tentatively scheduled to reach a decision on a location prior to the Strategic Planning Committee's meeting the next day. The special meeting has since been canceled, Chairman Tim Neville said.

Superintendent of Schools John Gallacher said the town would owe back $2.737 million to the state if the Enfield High School building was no longer used as a school. There would be no reimbursement due if the Fermi building were vacated, he said.

Neville said there will be costs involved no matter what scenario was chosen. "There are costs for Enfield, costs for Fermi, and costs if we do nothing," he stated.

Even if the town retained both high schools, considerable expense would be required to bring Fermi into compliance with handicap-accessibility standards, and to upgrade labs at both schools to meet state requirements, Neville said.

Gallacher recommended the Enfield High School building be significantly altered to achieve a "refurbished to new" condition, which would qualify for considerable state reimbursement. He said a small renovation of the existing structure would considered "basic maintenance," and therefore not eligible for reimbursement. An example given at the meeting was tearing down the D-wing, where the science labs are housed, and rebuilding it to specifications.

Prior to the motion to approve the Enfield High School location, board member Kevin Fealy said he would like get more public input before making a decision. Gallacher replied that all information about the consolidation has been available, in some cases for more than a year, on the school system's web site, enfieldschools.org.