The early groundbreaking was made possible last week when the board of education approved an early site package that would allow the district to start site preparation this fall, rather than waiting until next spring, when wet weather could cause problems, said Peter Becker, project executive for Skanska-Megan, which is the construction manager for the project.
The freshman building and the other two elementary schools are set to open in the fall of 2017. One elementary will replace Central Elementary. A second elementary school, to be built across from the high school on the Holden Boulevard side, will be added to the district, creating a total of six elementary schools.
The elementary schools would be reconfigured to house grades Pre-K through 5. There would be two middle schools for grades 6-8 in the current Middle School and the Intermediate School, reducing the number of kids at the existing Middle School. School transitions for all students will be reduced from five (K-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9, and 10-12 ) to essentially three (K -5, 6-8, and 9-12).
The new buildings were made possible last year when voters passed a $61 million bond issue. The state is paying the other $19 million for the buildings.
The district will open the naming of its new elementary school, and the renaming of two of its schools, to the public.
Tasked with organizing this project is Teresa Sunderman, a supervisor in the special education department.
“The process would be to create an (online) survey and have that available to the community, staff and students and have that open for about four weeks. It would be very open-ended, whatever they would like to name the buildings,” Sunderman said.
Once that initial round of voting is done, Sunderman will meet with the Fairfield officials to narrow the names down 15 or 20 names per school. Then, that smaller field would be sent back out to the community for another vote. Sunderman then plans to meet with the board of education in November to narrow the field again, with the top choice for each building being named in January.
Sunderman also noted there will likely be limits placed so that a person can’t vote more than once per round online. A hard copy of the survey would also be made available, she said.
“We were looking to go live with this next week … we want to try to promote it with kids. We want the kids to have an active role in this,” said Superintendent Paul Otten. The surveys would be available on the district’s website and Facebook and Twitter pages.
“We want to give control to the community, but we (as a staff) want to have some control over what’s out there as the naming possibilities,” he added.
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