Crews are expected to break ground next month on a new Bassick High School in Bridgeport, Conn.
The Connecticut Post reports that the construction of the 204,000-square-foot building, which was supposed to begin in January, is still on track to be completed by the start of the 2025-26 school year.
The announcement came as the Bridgeport district sought to ease concerns about a plan to co-locate the Bridgeport Military Academy on the Bassick campus.
Anthony Stark, an architect with the design firm Perkins Eastman, said the four-story building will have 10 classrooms that have been set aside for the military academy, which is made up of about 300 students.
Interim Superintendent Alyshia Perrin says administrators from the two schools will meet regularly over the next two years to coordinate the merger so that both student bodies will be able to transition smoothly to the new building, which will have capacity for 1,250 students.
Some school board members have raised concerns about housing Bassick's roughly 1,000 students and the military academy under one roof. Board member Albert Benejan says he is worried the plan could undermine the military academy's specially designed curriculum.
The school board approved the integration plan more than three years ago, in part to ensure military academy students have access to athletic facilities and workshop classrooms that are not available at the academy’s existing campus.
Merging the schools also has enabled the district to secure more state funding for the project. Raising the capacity from about 1,000 students to 1,250 students enabled the district to increase the project budget from $115 million to $124 million.
