Norwich – The School Facilities Review Committee will have a new look when it next convenes in December, with the appointment of two teachers and the Board of Education chairman to the group working on a $144.5 million proposal to consolidate and restructure city schools by grade levels.

The City Council voted unanimously Monday on two resolutions, one to appoint school board Chairman Aaron “Al” Daniels to the committee in replacement of fellow Board of Education member Angelo Yeitz, who resigned from the committee, and the other to appoint two teachers to the panel.

Teachers Lisa Cormier and Susan Blinderman were added to the committee. A City Council resolution approved in October authorized three teachers to be added to the committee, but Monday's action filled just two of the slots.

The facilities committee in August voted to accept a report from the hired consultant team that recommended consolidating from eight to four elementary schools and realigning the buildings by grade level – two schools for kindergarten through second grade and two for third through sixth grades. The recently renovated Kelly Middle School would remain for grades seven and eight.

The committee voted again earlier this month in favor of the renovation recommendations. The committee hopes to obtain state approval of the estimated $86.9 million state reimbursement for the project and to put the project's $57.6 million local cost to voters in a November 2017 referendum.

Blinderman, representing the Norwich Teachers League in June complained to the School Facilities Committee that teachers and school staff were being left out of the deliberations at the critical decision-making stage. Teachers renewed that complaint in October, and Alderwoman Joanne Philbrick, a member of the facilities committee, submitted a resolution to the City Council to add three teachers to the panel.

Blinderman and Cormier did not attend Monday night's City Council meeting.

c.bessette@theday.com