Exploring Options to Upgrade Miller-Driscoll

By Max Wittstein

The held a special meeting Thursday night, August 25, to explore options for the Miller-Driscoll School Construction and Renovation Project, which was originally approved in 2008.

The Steering Committee, chaired by Troy Ellen, gave a Power Point presentation and showed the board of ed how the school could be improved to meet the needs of the town’s future population.

“The examination is now three years in the making,” she said. “There has been a great deal that happened since 2008, as we all know, and it’s been quite a project.”

There were several plans discussed to accommodate the expansion with the “sprawling nature, to put it lightly,” of the original building, as Steering Committee architect Glen Golenberg described it.

“You get a true feeling of what the concept of this was when it was constructed,” he said. “There was a distinct pod concept to the original building.”

The design was lifted from a Southern California firm in the 1960s and built in Connecticut without regard for how the climates differed; hence, the roof has had problems with rain and snow runoff in the past.

According to Ellen, the building currently has inadequate space for the offices and small-group teaching, inadequate bathroom facilities, and being a one-story building also translates into “long walks for little legs.”

Three possibilities were discussed to address the problems: addition of more classrooms, a cafeteria addition, or to construct a new building. With reimbursements from state and federal grants, the first two plans were set to cost the town of Wilton $29 million, and the building addition plan would cost Wilton $32 million.

The classroom addition plan involves a two-story addition to the school which would house the second grade, which would also close a “loop” in the school’s floor plan and enable traffic to move about the building better. However, it does not solve the issue of distance that the kindergarten through second grade students would have to walk, and would split the second grade between two floors.

The cafeteria addition plan would allow for the public assembly areas to be grouped at one end of the campus, allowing for a new public entrance and the ability to secure classroom areas during non-school hours. It would also allow the kindergarten and second grade students to walk shorter distances.

The new building plan, while most expensive, would allow more opportunities for modern, flexible classrooms with built-in technology, a building designed specifically for primary-grade students, and a building sited for maximum energy efficiency. The drawbacks, aside from a higher price tag, are that current zoning constraints allow for only two locations for a new building, and that construction would displace the parking and playground areas for approximately 18 months.

The meeting was adjourned without any vote being taken.