School Board Considers Closing Schools to Cut Budget

The Board of Education is considering closing Darcey or Chapman schools to cut costs as it continues to prepare a ‘worst-case’ budget for next school year.

“We are seriously looking at closing schools, grade restructuring and redistricting schools,” Finance Committee Chairman Tony Perugini said before Thursday's school board meeting.

He said the board is examining three options:

• Closing Darcey School and moving kindergarten classes back into neighborhood schools.
• Closing Chapman Elementary and distributing students among the town’s remaining three elementary schools.
• Phasing out some grade levels at Chapman.

The board is studying how much it would save by closing the schools and what it would cost to retrofit the remaining schools to absorb the additional students. The committee expects to present its findings on March 17.

The inquiry comes as the school board searches for ways to cut $2 million from Superintendent Greg Florio’s $63.45 million budget proposal.

The board approved Florio’s request as proposed in January, but major cuts by the Town Council are expected. Other proposed cost-saving measures include eliminating extracurricular activities, raising student activity fees and shedding dozens of teaching positions.

"These are all worst-case scenarios," Perugini said.

The board first raised the idea of closing Chapman during budget deliberations last year, citing declining enrollment. The proposal prompted hundreds of parents to fill Town Council chambers in protest.

The administration later commissioned a study on facilities and enrollment trends by a community-based committee, which recommended against any school closures in the short term but suggested the board would need to revisit the idea within the next decade.

Perugini said the current budget crisis could force school officials to fast-track those plans, but finding space to house additional students in the remaining schools is a challenge.

Closing Chapman, for example, could leave the elementary schools with classes of more than 30 students. “Some of our classrooms just can’t handle those numbers,” Perugini said. Meanwhile, closing Darcey would require relocating the district's Early Intervention Center, which serves preschoolers with special needs.

He said the board needs to look at whether building additions or converting non-classroom spaces to house extra students would offset any potential savings. Even if a school closing is feasible economically, he said the board also needs to weigh the long-term effects on student performance.

 “As much as we’re worried about the bottom line, we have to be certain that we don’t inadvertently devastate our school system,” he said.

In other business, the school board is asking to meet with the Town Council to discuss a $365,000 shortfall in the school district’s special education account.

The shortfall was caused by an unexpected number of special education students who were placed in programs outside the district this year. State law requires the local school district to pay for the specialized instruction and provide transportation to the programs.

The state has reimbursed the town about $367,000 more than it budgeted for special education this year, and Florio has written a letter to Town Council Chairman Tim Slocum asking the council to credit the extra money to the school budget. 

In past years, any excess reimbursement money has remained in the town budget but Florio said in his letter that state law requires the reimbursements be appropriated to the schools.

"If we just follow the law we can offset a big chunk (of the shortfall)," Florio said.