Is it Architecture or Education?

Staff and administrators at Shelter Rock Elementary School tried to explain a complicated idea to the City Council during Monday night's public hearing on a proposed $44 million school bond package.

Architecture is important in education.

"It's a tough time to ask for this kind of money," said Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who led the 2020 task force that proposed this bond package.

The goal of the $44 million is to address overcrowding in the city's elementary and middle schools. The plan is to add classrooms and other space to three elementary schools and to reconfigure Mill Ridge Intermediate School into two academies for middle school students. These additions and changes, plus a new Head Start building under construction on Foster Street, will allow Danbury to offer all-day kindergarten.

Dr. Bill Glass, the deputy superintendent of Danbury Public Schools, said that Danbury High School is at about 3,000 students today, and when the population bubble moving through the elementary and middle schools reaches the high school, it will have about 3,500 students.

"That's not educationally responsible," Glass said.

When discussing the fact Danbury doesn't have all-day kindergarten, Schools Superintendent Sal Pascarella said, "This is a little bit of an embarassment we don't have all-day kindergarten."

One by one, members of the Shelter Rock Elementary School staff stood up in the pubic hearing and explained why these extra rooms will be so important.

Richard Roos, a 4th grade teacher at Shelter Rock, said holding a music class in a gymnasium or cafeteria is like trying to hold a public hearing at the food court of the Danbury Fair mall.

Susanne Boughton, who has 33 years of experience in the Danbury schools as a paraprofessional, sometimes works with special education students in a classroom, sometimes in the hallway, sometimes in the cafeteria and sometimes in the teacher's room. "It's not fair to the kids," Boughton said.

Elizabeth Campbell, a first grade teacher at Shelter Rock, said paraprofessionals will take a special education student into the hallway for a test, where they will sit to take the test while students and sometimes entire classes walk by.

Wendi Wright, a parent volunteer at Shelter Rock, said she's seen special education students taking tests with distractions in all directions.

"They need to focus. They need to be in a classroom," Wright said. "If you gave them a quiet room, they might do better on that test."

Kindergarten Teacher Elizabeth DiResco, said in the winter, those students who are taken into the hallway for that quality "one-on-one" time, have to wear winter coats its so cold. "This is your 'at risk' population, the kids who have the hardest time concentrating."