Alders Sarah Miller, Caroline Tanbee Smith, and Frank Redente press NHPS leaders on a facilities plan. Credit: Laura Glesby Photo New Haven Public Schools will soon commission an analysis of conditions in buildings across the district in order to build a “master plan” for maintenance. Tha t next step, as school administrators told alders on Wednesday night, will help New Haven take a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to school maintenance. “I’m having déjà vu,” responded Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller. “Didn’t we just do this?” She was referring to an over 500-page 2024 report on the status of school buildings that the district enlisted from local architecture firm Svigals + Partners as well as S/L/A/M Collaborative (SLAM). At the time, that report was referred to as a “master plan.” (Read that full report here.) Miller sits on the Board of Alders Education Committee, which invited school leaders to a workshop at City Hall on Wednesday night devoted to transportation and facilities maintenance at New Haven Public Schools (NHPS). There, committee alders pressed Supt. Madeline Negrón and Chief of School Operations Paul Whyte on the cost and pace of producing a long-term, district-wide facilities plan. Specifically, they questioned why another study needs to be conducted before the school district can produce what school administrators are calling a “master plan” — a document detailing the long-term priorities for proactive maintenance and upgrades to over 40 school buildings across the district. In 2024 presentations to the Board of Education’s Finance and Operations committee, then-Chief Operating Officer Thomas Lamb as well as representatives of the 2024 plan’s authors referred to the 2024 report as the “master plan.” At the same time, a slideshow produced by the S/L/A/M Collaborative and Svigals stated, “The Master Plan offers information across major areas of operation; however, it does not define specific project scopes or timelines. Further study is necessary to determine financial considerations and community support for the recommendations.” Then, in September 2024 — four months after Lamb was placed on administrative leave, and one month before he resigned — Negrón told the alders’ Education Committee that another phase of the facilities study would be necessary. She described the Svigals and S/L/A/M Collaborative report as an initial phase of a district-wide building study, while stating that a more detailed study would be needed before a true “master plan” can be produced. On Wednesday, Miller said she feels that alders and school leaders are “having the same meeting” again and again. “Can you just explain, really simply, why is there a difference between what we did… and what’s happening now?” she asked. According to Negrón, the initial report doesn’t have the level of mechanical detail that would enable the school district to assess costs and create action plans on each item. That level of detail is necessary in order to “establish priorities with specificity and understand costs in order to bond,” she said. NHPS Transportation Director Sequella Coleman added context based on her experience as the former principal of multiple schools transitioning or starting up in new school buildings. “If you look at architectural plans, there are layers on top of layers,” she said, and the initial report didn’t excavate every layer. Each school needs specific action items, she said, such as: “They need five bolts here. They need $500 of roofing material.” At the end of the meeting, Miller returned to the topic. “You have the most difficult jobs in the city,” she told the administrators. “I hear you.” “At the same time, we have kids go to school with water falling on their heads… That kid doesn’t get a chance to do that class over again.” In one middle school science class at Fair Haven School, Miller said, “there’s a bucket on the table. And that’s their one chance to do seventh grade… Children can’t wait.” Negrón said that she agrees with Miller. The district hears directly from families and staff about building conditions that concern her, she said, stressing that the district is working on enhancing short-term maintenance while working toward a master plan. For example, NHPS is building an in-house staff dedicated to maintenance — “our own people who take pride in our buildings” — rather than relying on outside companies. This system will not only save costs, she said, but may enable regular monthly repair schedules at each school in addition to emergency repairs. At the same time, she said, NHPS is operated with “such limited resources.” Over the course of her career, “I’ve seen what other districts have that we don’t have.” Negrón and Whyte weren’t able to immediately provide alders with the cost of the first district-wide analysis. The cost of the second analysis, they said, would be determined through the contractor bidding process. They estimated that a contractor will be selected by December 2026. Numerical Errors Delayed Roof Fixes Chief of School Operations Paul Whyte. The meeting also revealed that NHPS’ applications for state funding to fix the roofs of Wilbur Cross and Hillhouse each got held up due to numerical errors. NHPS was asked to provide more documentation for its application for the Cross roof, while in the case of Hillhouse, the district had to reapply for the grant altogether. NHPS is currently waiting to hear whether the state’s Office of School Construction will fund the Cross and Hillhouse roof applications. In June 2025, the Board of Alders approved those applications with amended cost projections, estimating a need for approximately $8.78 million for Hillhouse’s repairs (nearly $6 million of which would come from the state) and approximately $7.6 million for Cross’ repairs (over $5.1 million of which would come from the state). In the meantime, the district has received the approximately $1.3 million it requested from the state to fix the roof of Truman School. (The city itself is contributing an estimated $628,511 toward those repairs.) In the case of the Cross roof, said Whyte, “The numbers between different forms that were previously submitted and redone didn’t match up. It actually came down to a $900 difference.” “So that’s why that was a small fix,” Whyte said. “Now we’re just waiting to hear.” With Hillhouse, too, there were “numbers that had to be corrected and matched up and some of those had to be resubmitted,” said Whyte. The disrepair of the roof at Wilbur Cross has led to the extended closure of that school’s swimming pool, one of five public pools across the city. East Rock Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith asked if the district is implementing any policies to prevent these kinds of grant errors from occurring in the future. “It’s always important to put as many eyes on forms,” said Whyte, noting that the applications “changed hands midstream” due to turnover in school leadership. The post Another “Master Plan”? Alders Press School Admin On Facilities appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less