Frank Craine, a representative of Gisolfi Associates, the architects hired by the school district for the bond project, spoke to the board of education and residents about the progress at the elementary schools and the future of the projects at the middle school, high school and primary schools.

Craine began by noting that with a few exceptions caused by weather delays, the work at Stratford is nearly complete. He explained that they must wait until the warmer weather in order to complete the rest of the sitework, which includes installing the asphalt pavement work on the parking lot excavating the east access drive.

According to Craine, several spaces at Stratford have already been turned over to the school, including the learning center and cafeteria. He added that the library has been temporarily turned over but because of a defect in the carpet, which has been recognized by the manufacturer, that carpet must be pulled up so the students will have to give up that space briefly during that period. Once that is remedied, which Craine is expecting to happen this month, all the furniture and books can be moved into the library.

The defect in the carpet was found while what is known as the "punch list" was being done. The punch list, said Craine, is a process whereby the architect and the construction team walk through the space once it is completed and look for any problems or defects. When there are problems found the contractor corrects it and then once it is corrected, the team goes back and examines the space again until it meets their expectations.

After all the sitework is completed and everything inside is ready, Craine said the steering committee has been discussing a grand opening ceremony for the library and cafeteria, possibly sometime in February or March.

At Stewart School, explained Craine, they are having the same weather delays with the sitework. He said they were in the midst of doing the Clinton side of the building, which is the majority of the project, but that had to come to a halt because it is too cold.

Craine did say, though, that in spite of the weather delays, they have been able to turn some spaces, including the four classroom infill, over to the school. By now having this classroom space available, part of the cafeteria is now available to be used as a cafeteria. The other half is being used as the art room, while the north addition is being completed. Craine anticipates that will be the next area completed. The painting and gyp boards in the north addition classrooms have been completed, according to Craine, and the millwork in those classrooms is approximately 75-80 percent completed. Those rooms, Craine expects to be turning over to the school in the "very near future."

Craine then went on to speak about the middle school project, the bids for which were awarded at the Jan. 16 school board work session. Now that all five contracts have been awarded, a kickoff meeting was planned for Feb. 5, at which time Craine expected that the construction team and the contractor would be meeting with Middle School Principal Edward Sallie and others, to discuss the rules and regulations of working in the school district. This, according to Craine, would also be an opportunity for the five contractors to coordinate how the project will be completed.

Although the district had planned to go out to bid for the high school project in early January, Craine explained that, because both the middle school and high school projects are so large, they did not want both projects out to bid at the same time, so they postponed the high school bids. Now that the middle school bids have been awarded they are completing the bid documents for the high school and expect to have those requests for bids out this week.

The bids for the K-1 schools, are planned to go out following the high school. "Since the high school is the largest project, we would like to get the bids from contractors in hand so we can know where the budget stands and then proceed with strategies as to how to bid the K-1 schools," said Craine.

Following a slide show of the work that has been done at Stewart School, a father of a fifth grader at Stratford questioned what plans would be made to minimize the impact of the students who have just lived through the work at the elementary schools and will now be moving on to the middle school where construction is scheduled to begin shortly. "The current fifth graders are destined to move through the schools at the same pace as the construction and these kids just got their lunchroom back and, in spite of what you said, they are not really in a library, they are in a big open shell with some tables; there are no books there," he said. The parent added that his real concern was contingency planning, especially considering much of the work is to take place in the science and technology labs. "I'd hate to see the current fifth graders, when they move into the middle school as sixth graders, go half a year or longer without science labs or technology the way they've gone more than half a year without a library and lunchroom."

Craine noted that the middle school is probably one of their most intricate projects because they are working on the science rooms and the library. With several additions planned for the middle school, including a library expansion and a four-classroom addition at the end of the science wing, Craine said they would like to build the outer shell as soon as possible so that as soon as school lets out in June, they can begin restoring the science rooms. While, he noted, everyone would like all the construction to take place between the end of June and middle of August, "we all have to be realistic, that just can't happen. What we are trying to do is have a minimal impact on the students." Craine said that in hopes of doing this they will be preordering their materials to try to speed up the process since they are already behind a month because of the delay in awarding the bids.

The father then asked those doing the project to be realistic with the contingency planning, considering especially that the current fifth grade which will be entering the middle school in September is significantly larger than the eighth grade class that is leaving in June. Craine said that they are in the process of revising their contingency plan, because of the time already lost.

"I just want to urge the board to look after these kids by insisting on a contingency plan for what has not gone wrong yet," said the father. Board of Education Trustee Ken Monaghan said that as both he and fellow trustee John Klupka have children currently in the fifth grade, that this is a personal concern to them and he would be sure that the impact on the students would be minimized.

Though acknowledging that the concerns raised by this parent and others were valid, Board of Education President Linda Leone asked everyone to remember the positive points of the presentation. "We are planning to have a ceremony at Stratford School, as the first school that we hope to be completed by the end of February, beginning of March, and we were talking about a date with the school administration for the first week in March and we'd like it to be a real event open to the community, where we may have part of it scheduled during the day with the students and part of it in the evening where the general community can come out," said Leone. "It would be an opportunity to celebrate what has been completed with the construction and now the community has the opportunity to see what exactly all the tax dollars were able to produce in that school."

Leone said that this event would serve as a reminder that, "Real progress has been achieved and somewhere in the not too distant future the end is in sight."