Stamford Candidate Martin Visits Springdale School

With one week remaining before Election Day, Democratic mayoral candidate David Martin was asking for high-fives rather than votes at Springdale Elementary School Tuesday. The room previosuly housed the school's music program, but was converted to a classroom to accommodate the school's growing enrollment, said Principal Anne Downey. In the school's media center, book stacks cordoned off a corner section into two small classrooms, also used for English language instruction. Small schools -- not just small classrooms -- provide the best learning environment for elementary students, he said. Martin said his review of a recent study commissioned by the Board of Education has convinced him modular classrooms, rather than a new school building, is the most realistic way of dealing with overcrowding. Enrollment is expected to taper off in the next couple of years, and spending $50 million on a new building would leave little money for capital improvements at Stamford's 20 other schools, he said. Unaffiliated mayoral candidate Kathleen Murphy also said she would explore turning shuttered private schools or other buildings into public schools. Murphy said modular classrooms -- which are expensive and may require the razing of playgrounds to make room for them -- are the least attractive solution to the school system's overcrowding problem. Nestor said she would hate to have families think twice about signing a mortgage for a home in Springdale based on concerns over whether the school had enough room for its children.