Norwich to hire consultant to review school buildings for possible restructuring
Norwich – The committee that was established in the spring to avoid hiring a potentially costly consulting firm to evaluate all city school buildings has decided the city needs professional expertise to do the job.
The committee reviewed a detailed request for proposals Monday to hire a firm to review the 15 buildings — 12 school buildings, central office, the food services operation building and a former environmental science building used to store and assemble science kits — and make recommendations for how the school system can consolidate operations.
Alderman Mark Bettencourt, the committee chairman, said that once the committee began its task, it quickly concluded that an expert would be needed to consider the many issues involved in restructuring the city school system.
The committee includes officials from city and school government. There is no identified source of funding and no money budgeted specifically in either the city or the school budget to hire a consulting firm, but members said the money likely would come from both city and school budgets.
“It wasn't going to be realistic to do it ourselves,” Bettencourt said.
He added that the consolidations done in recent years have been last-minute budget-cutting decisions and not long-range planning. The school board several years ago closed two elementary schools due to budget cuts. And this coming school year, school officials will place all seventh- and eighth-graders at the Kelly Middle School, converting Teachers' Memorial Middle School into a “sixth-grade academy” and a special education center for elementary age students.
The RFP will be advertised on July 17, and the committee will host day-long tours of all 15 school buildings on July 31. The bid deadline will be Aug. 21, and the committee hopes to interview finalists on Sept. 17.
The committee Monday reviewed several of the complicated factors that will be included in the RFP for firms to consider. Norwich public schools currently have six bilingual classes, required when a school has 20 or more students who speak a primary language other than English. The school system also has been tracking high transiency patterns occurring throughout the school year. For example, 100 new students arrived at the John B. Stanton School throughout the school year, and 100 others departed.
Norwich also has two federally funded magnet elementary schools, Wequonnoc School in Taftville for art and music and the John M. Moriarty School for environmental science. The RFP will state that the city will consider all possible grade level structures, but Superintendent Abby Dolliver, a committee member, said combining all students of the same grade would be problematic with the magnet schools already in place.
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