Mayor Bill Finch and several members of the city’s legislative delegation announced today funds have been approved to build a new Longfellow School in the West End. About $50 million dollars are now in place for school construction.
Officials announced $23 million will be combined with a previous allocation three years ago of $27 million for renovations to Longfellow School, changing the scope of the project from renovations to a complete ground-up rebuilding of the school.
“The existing Longfellow School has some serious problems, including a deteriorating building and contaminated grounds,” according to State Senator Anthony Musto. “Plans were made three years ago to renovate the school, but what we really needed is a total reconstruction. Renovations alone would be penny wise and pound foolish.”
“Standing alongside members of the Bridgeport delegation, I fought hard to secure these critically important funds for Longfellow School,” says State Rep. Auden Grogins. “Antiquated buildings should not be an obstacle that our city’s schoolchildren need to overcome. I am thrilled that our hard work has paid off for Bridgeport students.”
“After many days of negotiating in my capacity as leader of the Bridgeport Delegation, we were able to secure the funding to build a new school before the close of the Legislative Session,” says State Rep. Andres Ayala. “Also, I am pleased the bill contains a $1.5 million allocation which will address issues at Columbus School in my district. This bond allocation, along with the language contained within the Education Reform bill, will help to provide better opportunities for the students of Longfellow.”
Longfellow School falls within Musto’s and Grogins’ respective legislative districts. Ayala, who represents the East Side, is preparing to challenge incumbent State Senator Ed Gomes for the Democratic nomination. Former State Senator Ernie Newton is also a candidate. The school is close to the division line of Musto’s and Gomes’ senate districts.
Longfellow School, on Ocean Terrace, serves roughly 500 students in grades Pre-K through 8.
Bridgeport CT USA is the home of another building (school) startup. Pretty soon, Bridgeport could unveil four new startups in downtown North plus Steelpointe’s massive construction. What’s good for Bridgeport is good for the entire OIB blogoshere.
BTW, who ever invented the “Village District” designation should come forward and take a bow–it’s a great idea that will appeal to the desired target audience. New housing, RR access and proximity to Bridgeport’s upcoming revival will draw a nice crowd. All we need is a nonstop train leaving Bridgeport at 6:39am and a homebound train leaving Grand Central Station at 5:52pm.
I don’t see blight, I see beauty. Make the switch and you’ll feel better, too.
(wink)
This (from the BOE webpage) shows the gazillions being budgeted to update the schools, along with the Longfellow allocations. Where’s the money coming from?
www .bridgeportedu.com/docs/2011-2012/March2012BudgetPresentation.pdf
We are not getting inkjet cartridges because Superintendent Vallas wants to put in new copiers, and link all printers to them. We have two new ones–and the one I use with my grade level partners is 1/2 the size of the one we had originally.
Imagine the mess when 10-15 teachers all print out 30 pages of reading work, 30 math, 30 homework–and the special ed/school psychologist/social workers are printing out confidential reports/IEPs at 9:00 a.m.
Guess what kind of mess they’ll find on the floor when they try to retrieve their copies at lunch.
But they’ll be doing it in a nice building.
Don’t forget, these “professionals” created all the Downtown blight where all these projects “could” start up soon. When the folks responsible for this mess leave Bridgeport, or get voted out, then we will see real progress.
Longfellow is one of the Black Rock neighborhood schools. I have read to classes there as a yearlong volunteer and been to community meetings, most recently about the subsurface contamination caused by building in a previous filled land area where commercial and building debris were covered and built upon. I believe problems of floor cracking and subsidence at the nearby Fire House may be attributable to similar issues. Finally, in recent times the clearing of an area adjacent to school and fields caused rat colonies to move to other areas and create concern over health issues.
All of that said, I am curious at how quickly health issues according to those responsible were of a low and remediable level as told to the community have blossomed into school remediation canceled and new school funding. What was the process? What was the timeline from start to finish of funding approval? What local bodies were consulted? And what will Bridgeport’s share of the capital funding be going forward?
I have not followed education budgets in recent years because of the difficulty of gaining info. Vallas has talked about transparency so perhaps we may be able to see this at work in our community in the next school year. Time will tell.
*** LET’S SEEN WHAT CONTAMINATED SITE THEY FIND TO BUILD ON THIS TIME. *** GLOW IN THE DARK FUNDS ***