With just a few days to go until the Tuesday, Sept. 26 referendum on the rebuild of Ryerson Elementary School, emotions are running high and different sets of facts are flying about. In an effort to address concerns and answer questions, Superintendent of Schools Tom Scarice spoke with parents, teachers, and staff at Island Avenue Elementary School for more than two hours on Sept. 18.

The complete project under consideration involves work on two elementary schools, Jeffrey and Ryerson, but the only question residents will vote on this month is the Ryerson build for a total of $34,284,000 gross cost. The district submitted paperwork to the state in June to seek project approval and capitalize on reimbursement. If the project is approved by the state, which consultants and Board of Education (BOE) members have indicated is likely, the state reimbursement is estimated between $4- to $5.7 million. A new Ryerson would be designed and constructed from late 2017 through summer 2020. The Jeffrey project, which could go to vote in 2019, has a projected cost of $32.5 million. In this plan, and in all scenarios the BOE is proposing, Island Avenue would close, though closure opponents note that the BOE has not yet voted to close the school.

Polls are open for the Ryerson School referendum from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 26 at the Senior Center (District 1) and Brown School (District 2).

During the meeting at Island Avenue School, Scarice said he wanted to speak with parents from all of the schools about the study, how the BOE reached this point, the rationale behind the decision, and issues that are inevitable down the road.

“I will tell you this plan is not perfect,” he said. “If your goal tonight is to poke holes, you will win because the plan is not perfect. No plan will be perfect. The BOE was elected and decided, with the help of experts, to use their best judgment on what would be the best approach for the district, long term.”

Attempting to address some of the early criticisms head on, Scarice said while he has seen the sign around town calling for the protection of neighborhood schools, he said Madison does not have neighborhood schools.

“If you live on Randy Drive, Island Avenue does not feel like a neighborhood school and if you live north of the circle, Ryerson does not feel like a neighborhood school…What we do have is small school cultures,” he said. “We walk in and the principal knows who we are, the teachers know who everybody is, and there are about 350 kids. That is what we signed up for and that is a really nice elementary school model. This plan keeps the small school model.”

Scarice said the current plan also tries to protect the educational operating budget by keeping capital expenses separate. Scarice said the buildings are getting old and are expensive to run and having to build upgrades and renovations into the operating budget will hurt.

“If we are taking the annual budget to get new windows and doors and security and new HVAC systems, we will be in a constant struggle between what we fund for capital projects and teachers…The reason the board adopted this plan is it allows us to look at long-term capital projects and we would bond for those and time it precisely as our high school debt sunsets,” he said.

Proposing an Alternative

Island Avenue School parent Chip Walz, who founded the state-registered political action committee called Focus on Education & Maintain Madison’s Schools, handed out fliers at the meeting and said that he believes the three elementary schools can be upgraded for a lot less money.

He said he thinks that spending $65 million on the plan as proposed by the Board of Education would jeopardize the entire education program in town. Instead, he said, he thinks the three elementary schools can be renovated for $15 million.

“Education is about teachers and books and programs, and not fancy school buildings. While we certainly need to upgrade our buildings, it doesn’t take $65 million to do so. We need to focus on Polson, which is in terrible straits. In a couple of years, Hand is going to be 20 years old and that will need to be taken care of as well.”

Walz was referring to a 2015 Mechanical and Electrical Systems Existing Conditions report compiled by Consulting Engineering Services, Inc., for the BOE and used during the board’s decision to rebuild Ryerson and Jeffrey. The report, which covers mechanical, plumbing, and electrical updates, lists replacement cost for each of the three elementary schools between $2-$4 million for a total of $9.6 million. The report (which can be read with this story at Zip06.com) notes that nearly all of the systems have reached the end of their useful life; it does not specify costs for any other repairs or upgraders such as windows, doors, ramps, or new roofs.

Island Avenue at Issue

While Ryerson is the focus of the vote on Sept. 26, many parents in the room were concerned about the future of Island. While no formal vote has been taken, Scarice said that, as he previously indicated to Island parents, the plan of the board is to close Island Avenue regardless of the referendum vote.

“The intention right now is to absolutely go from three schools to two,” he said. “I want to be very, very clear about that. We can’t justify six schools going forward with the enrollments where they are. That is a very sad fact and not something I celebrate at all and I would love to say that we are adding kids, but that is just not happening right now.”

Scarice said he knows closing a school is an emotional issue and he said the board is aware of that and has been clear from the beginning that if and when a school closes, due to its location, the town—which owns the school buildings—would like it to be Island.

Walz said selecting Island because of its perceived value is not a good plan.

“I think there has been a lot of misinformation and lack of information with regard to the fact that Island avenue is the number-one school [in Madison] ranked by niche.com [a Pittsburgh-based analytics site that pulls data and uses algorithms to analyze and rank U.S. schools], it is the best physical plant, and it is the only school in the district that is growing [in enrollment], and the superintendent says he is going to close it regardless of the vote,” he said. “The fact that we are closing Island presumably because it is the most valuable land—well, in that case why don’t we close the Surf Club? That is the most valuable land in town and that is ridiculous, just as it is ridiculous to think [the Island site] is worth $2- to $3 million and this is going to save us money because this is valuable land.”

Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, Sept. 26, Scarice said the district needs to contract its buildings because of declining enrollment district-wide.

“We have to confront the facts and come up with a plan and move forward with that,” he said. “The wonderful thing is this is a democracy and if folks think this is a bad plan, they are going to say that and we will respond to that and deal with that and we will still be the best teaching and learning school district in the state.”

On the Evening News

Parents arriving at Island Avenue School for the Sept. 18 meeting noticed TV news crews outside the building. First Selectman Tom Banisch said the crews arrived at Town Campus that morning and asked his office when they were closing Island Avenue, a question that was directed over to the schools.

Superintendent of School Tom Scarice said he was told a parent called the news crew. The news crew asked Scarice what decision was being made that evening, to which Scarice said none.

“I made it very clear that we had made a decision months ago, you are about three or four months late,” he said. “Next Tuesday night is the story, because that is when the community will have spoken.”

Island Avenue School parent Chip Walz said he was glad to see the news team as many people in town are not aware of the referendum date.

“I think it’s important that the word get out,” he said. “I think when you talk to many people in town, they don’t even know that there is a referendum on the 26th. The Source puts it on the cover each week but not everyone reads The Source—I have talked to lots of people who have no idea there is a referendum.”