STRATFORD — School officials are considering a plan to transform the former Honeyspot Elementary School into a special education outplacement facility in three years.
If all goes as planned, Acting Superintendent of Schools Heather Borges’ proposal could allow Stratford to convert the Stratford Academy: Honeyspot House administrative building at 55 Fotch St. into a regional special needs school — a move the state has been pushing municipalities to pursue.
“It does have to be used specifically for special education programs,” Borges told the school board on Monday. “Our thought is really to be able to meet the needs of our at-risk youth and students with emotional disabilities because right now the waiting list for our outplacements is sometimes six and eight months for us to get the students in. … There are not enough seats outside of here, so we know we can do that internally,”
Special education costs have risen so dramatically in recent years that the legislature passed a set of reforms this month that allows the state Department of Education to spend around $200 million each in fiscal years 2026 and 2027 on special education, prohibiting cost increases for most providers beginning in 2026 as the legislature and educators work to set special education rates annually starting in three years.
Gov. Ned Lamont called the passage of the special education bill, and another bill aimed at making early childhood education more affordable for Connecticut families, among his “biggest” and “happiest” wins in his two terms in office.
The Stratford school board approved pursuing the idea and allocated $2.4 million to replace the Honeyspot roof and HVAC system as part of its 2026-30 capital improvements plan, board Chairman Michael Henrick said.
Borges said she will seek formal board approval for the plan in August, after the building is inspected. School officials will work this summer on preparing state or federal grant applications.
“If it is a school again, then we are allowed to apply for those competitive grants to be able to upgrade and expand our special education programs,” Borges said. “It’s a bit of a process, so it starts with you as a board of ed deciding to make it a school.”
The board supported the move as a way of using competitive state grants to upgrade the building and cut into rising statewide special education costs that often hamstring school administrators, students and their families, Henrick said.
“That building has the capability to hold 200 students, but because they’re kids with exceptionalities, we won’t be able to fill up the capacity, but we’ll be able to handle a portion of Stratford’s outplaced kids. It just depends on what those kids’ needs are. It needs to be an individual-based assessment,” Henrick said.
If the building is large enough, it could also serve as a regional special education facility. Once the program is up and running, Stratford may be able to offer special education services via tuition payments to out-of-town students, Henrick said.
The proposal impressed Mayor Laura Hoydick, who promised to allocate about $3 million in city funds toward the project should it qualify for state grants, Henrick said.
“The money won’t necessarily make it a school, but it needs a new roof, it needs HVAC, some of the windows need to be replaced, and they’ll put solar on the roof if they do the roof,” he said.
School officials will start applying for grants in September or October.
“This is not snap your fingers and it’s done,” Borges said. “It takes a lot of money and a lot of organization to expand our services to students, but it is also what the state is encouraging. It is encouraging us to regionalize and start working together to be able to support our students with exceptionalities.”