MONROE, Conn. — A tour of Jockey Hollow Middle School showed Facilities Planning Committee members the building’s most pressing needs, from replacing a 28-year-old roof and updating an aging boiler system to addressing an overcrowded cafeteria.
Chairwoman Dona-Lyn Wales said duct work had been included in the original construction, so the building is equipped for air conditioning. However, the roof unit only provides cool air to the auditorium.
“They put window air conditioning units in windows of classrooms,” Wales said, adding that the tour lasted about 45 minutes.
Among a laundry list of other needs are windows and doors that are not energy efficient to name a few.
The new Facilities Planning Committee’s charge is to assess facilities needs for the school district and the town. Growing student enrollment has made schools the immediate priority and the committee decided to focus on building a new school, rather than reopening Chalk Hill.
The committee meets every second and fourth Tuesday of the month, unless there is a holiday, at 7 p.m. Each meeting destination will be at one of the town’s schools and include a tour of the building’s condition.
The next meeting is scheduled to be held on July 14 at Monroe Elementary School, followed by a July 28 meeting at Stepney Elementary School, an Aug. 11 meeting at Fawn Hollow Elementary School and an Aug. 25 meeting at Masuk High School.
At some point, Wales said the committee will arrange to have a tour of Chalk Hill, which had closed as a middle school at the end of the 2010-2011 academic year.
Members’ second meeting was at Jockey Hollow last Tuesday, when the tour was led by Principal Julia Strong, Head Custodian Robert Orsino and Director of Maintenance Dan Krofssik. Strong said Orsino is a dedicated, longtime employee who shared history of the building, going back to when it first opened in 1998-99.
Other guests included Superintendent Joseph Kobza, Assistant Superintendent Sheila Casinelli, Finance Director Ronald Bunovsky Jr., former Board of Education Chairman David Ferris, who had served as chair of the Monroe Public Schools Ad Hoc Facilities Committee, and current school board chair, Dennis Condon.
One of the early goals of the committee is to absorb all of the knowledge from the Ad Hoc Facilities Committee, which compiled extensive studies of all of the town’s school buildings and grounds with the help of Silver Petrucelli and Associates.
Though all members have hard copies of the facilities report, Wales said it is over 500 pages, so on Tuesday, Kobza presented a summary of it.
“It was nice, because it presented the goals of the committee, and there were sections in the study about the condition of each facility that he went over that categorized issues for each school and the estimated costs if we had to do all those repairs,” Wales said.
The superintendent also went over enrollment, showing a historical timeline from 2006 to the present day.
“It’s almost like a bell curve,” Wales said. “The higher enrollment when Chalk Hill was there, the lower enrollment that closed it, and now it’s back up at a higher level.”
She said Kobza showed how schools are using their space to meet the needs of current enrollment. “He presented the different configuration options produced for space and facilities needs,” Wales said.
Wales said educators are concerned about handling the “COVID bubble,” the increase in elementary school students whose families moved to Monroe during the COVID-19 pandemic, who will be entering Jockey Hollow in the fall of 2027.
Kobza’s presentation included seven options the Ad Hoc committee came up with to meet the future needs of the district. It had recommended Option B, which calls for bringing Chalk Hill back as a school for grades 5 and 6 and adding a third floor, keeping Monroe Elementary as a pre-K through grade 4 school, and making both Stepney and Fawn Hollow grades K-4 elementary schools.
“This meeting was very informative,” Wales said. “It presented committee members with all the information we needed to know, especially when it comes to the space needs, the enrollment and building conditions. The presentation helped us to navigate through the written assessment study and the tour allowed us to see the Jockey Hollow building’s issues that are documented in the study.”
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