A Year In The Newtown School District

By Eliza Hallabeck

The year of 2008 saw accomplished students graduate from Newtown High School, foreign exchange students visit the town, and new friendships made between multiple sister schools from across the world.

Timo Rey, a foreign exchange student from Switzerland, found his niche at NHS by the time January 2008 came around. He had joined the football team, and had been getting along well with his host family, Jennifer Sposta and her 13-year-old son.

Wesley Learning Center kindergarten teacher Randi Rote had her students thinking globally in January, when she had them learning lessons about the seven continents by writing letters all over the world.

Two new administrators joined the Newtown School District while students were enjoying their winter vacation. Charles Dumais, the new principal at Newtown High School, was the first; the second was superintendent Dr Janet Robinson.

On January 15 School Facilities Director Gino Faiella announced that he found the leak in a steam pipe at Newtown Middle School. The underground pipe had been leaking since mid-November, costing the district about $100 a day in fuel. By the end of the year the project would be nearly completed and under budget.

The end of January was marked with a visit by Governor M. Jodi Rell when she spoke in the lecture hall at Newtown High School. Students and district administrators filled the hall to hear her speak. Gov Rell came to the school as a response to a request from NHS teacher Candice Dietter, who asked the governor to address her governmental studies classes.

In February, Newtown High School senior Dayton Horvath was named as a semifinalist in the country’s oldest and most prestigious research competition for high school seniors, the Intel Science Talent Search.

Three teachers in the district headed to Ghana in mid-February to work with Liberation refugees living in the Buduburam refugee camp. Reed Intermediate School teacher Karen King, Reed Intermediate School teacher Barbara Mancher, and Newtown High School teacher Maryann Sniekus returned to West Africa to help on February 26.

Newtown High School students Irene Koh, Meaghan Prophy, and Jacqueline Rosa received honorable mention or higher distinction in the Connecticut Scholastic Arts Award Program. The students’ work was also hung in the Hartford School of Art’s Silpe Gallery among other works from the state.

 By the end of February students in the Newtown Middle School’s drama club were preparing their performance of Disney’s Beauty And The Beast to be performed from March 7 to March 9.

March was welcomed by students at Middle Gate Elementary School with snakes, snails, and lizards tails when they took The Bee on a tour of math and science specialist Pam Fagin’s classroom, which fish, snakes, lizards, frogs, crabs, starfish, a horseshoe crab, a guinea pig, tortoises, and aquatic turtles call home.

Juniors in Cari Strand’s and Lee Keylock’s poetry slam joined several other English classes at the school in the school’s lecture hall for a formal recitation contest. This was the first year NHS participated in the national recitation contest called Poetry Out Loud, and after the formal recitation students from NHS continued on to represent the school at the state level.

Newtown High School had a few visitors in March from the Shandong Province in China. Assistant Principal Jason Hiruo told The Bee he was excited the educators from China were visiting, because it was the first opportunity to develop a working relationship with schools in China.

Disney’s Beauty And The Beast sold out every performance at Newtown Middle School. Director and language arts teacher Jennifer Sinal was pleased, telling The Bee, “We knew we wanted a showstopper.”

At a March 18 Board of Education meeting, NHS Principal Charles Dumais announced Claire Ober and Elise DeRoo’s achievements of being named as the NHS Class of 2008 valedictorian and salutatorian, respectably.

Newtown Middle School seventh grader Aidan Pelisson won third place in the Connecticut Geographic Bee in April. At the time, Aidan told The Bee, “I like geography. I always liked it, just reading about it. I have an atlas, it doesn’t just show ‘Philadelphia is here and Pittsburgh is here.’ It has more detail.”

Other NMS students and instructors were busy in April when they welcomed friends and family to the annual Celebration of the Arts. Under the direction of art teachers Arlene Spoonfeather, Claudia Mitchell, and Jean Walter, seventh and eighth grade students collaborated to create a world made up of colors, sights, sounds, and flavors to titillate the senses.

By the end of April students at Sandy Hook Elementary School had been on a journey with Humphrey the Hamster from Betty G. Birney’s The World According to Humphrey. During the school’s One School One Read program, every student in the school read the book and participated in at-home and classroom assignments to further their reading of the book.

An attorney for Richard Novia accompanied his client to a Board of Education meeting on May 6, pleading for an opportunity to be heard over what he deemed an “unjustifiable action” that resulted in the Newtown High School security chief being put on administrative leave. Referring to a March 12 incident, which apparently triggered district action against the 15-year district employee, attorney Vincent Sabatini called for the board to consider reinstating Mr Novia to his former post. Two weeks later during the school board’s next meeting on May 20, a swarm of support formed in the hallway outside of the Reed Intermediate School library as the school board met behind closed doors.

Many of the students, who had become familiar with Mr Novia through his security duties and as an advisor to the Technology Club, came in support after they heard about the scheduled May 20 meeting from friends. Others said they heard about it through e-mails or from an event placement on Facebook, which is similar to sending out an announcement. Mr Novia’s contract with the school district lapsed on June 30.

A Newtown Middle School awards ceremony honored students and teachers on June 13. More than 900 seventh and eighth grade students gathered on the front lawn of the school to acknowledge the achievements of their peers, and to honor retiring teachers Bill Girard and Ray Shupenis.

Reed Intermediate School Interact Club members were busy in June weaving “Bracelets For Bow Wows.” Sarah Braga, a student at the school, had her fellow students help her weave and sell bracelets to raise money for the Canine Advocates of Newtown, Inc.

Tears were shed in June when the Senior Book Buddies Club neared the end of its page-turning tale. For the school year, students in Lea Attanaio’s fourth grade class had been sharing their reading experience with six seniors, from both the Newtown Senior Center and The Village at Brookfield Common.

The General Federation of Women’s Clubs of Connecticut honored three Newtown High School artists with prizes for their work that was entered into a statewide contest. Nicky Haylon won second prize for her drawing titled “Reflections,” Sara Brainard won first prize for her sculpture “Pandas,” and Max Beitel won third prize for his sculpture “Go With The Flow.”

Newtown High School senior Dayton Horvath combined two methods of creating methanol from carbon dioxide to create a new method for obtaining the substance this year, and during the 2008 graduation commencement ceremony he received his diploma along with his fellow classmates. At the O’Neill Center at Western Connecticut State University, students were told to make headlines, pack their bags, and step into their Volkswagens. As the class valedictorian and salutatorian, Claire Ober and Elise DeRoo, said, school records were broken by this year’s graduates. Two award-winning scientists, an author, and a nationally recognized artist were just some of the accomplished students, they said during the ceremony, who were handed their diplomas this year.

NHS graduates were accomplishing many things over the summer of 2008. Marycate Conlon spent a week and a half at the University of California, Berkeley, studying with graduate students and learning techniques that she has now brought back to Lafayette College, where she attends. Marycate used this information to further Lafayette’s interdisciplinary project to develop a cost-effective, hybrid method of removing the contaminant pechlorate from groundwater. Eddie Small spent his summer away from Dickinson College as an inter for The Onion, a satirical news organization. Alexandra Issacs, who attends Chatham University, spent her summer working at as an intern at Devries Public Relations in Manhattan, and she said at the time that the summer may have turned her into a New Yorker. Brothers Edmund and Ethan Breitling took the Western Connecticut State University campus by storm as “Breitling and Breitling,” president and vice president of the school’s student government.

Calling security practices at Newtown schools “pretty good, better than most,” Superintendent Janet Robinson told The Bee in the middle of July that a highly detailed report from a former police official provided constructive information and highly valuable “fresh eyes” regarding district security practices.

The report was provided along with temporary consulting services from Newtown native Maureen Will, who was hired to oversee the town’s emergency communications department effective July 1. According to Dr Robinson, Ms Will, who had recently retired as a captain from the Brookfield Police Department, was brought on to help and advise school officials during the final few weeks of the school year.

The position for the school district security director was filled by the end of August as Mark Pompano started work on August 20. Mr Pompano was living and working in the Los Angeles when his sister-in-law, a police officer in Newtown, told him about the open position for security director of the Newtown School System.

Wednesday, August 27, students left their summer toys behind for crowded bus stops and the first day of the new school year.

The first week of school was welcomed with the First Fun Friday, a Peer Leadership after school program for students by students, which had girls going against girls in a Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock tournament.

The hill in front of Reed Intermediate School was covered with students, parents, and food on Wednesday, September 3, for the start of the Reed Rally, which kicked off the school year and welcomed new students with activities and fun.

Also in September, St Rose of Lima School was selected as a nominee for the US Department of Education’s national Blue Ribbon Award for 2009.

Driving to work one day at Newtown High School, Judy Blanchard, the district health coordinator for Newtown Public Schools, realized there were a large number of cars parked at one bus stop. Soon the Newtown Public Schools and Ms Blanchard were having a kickoff to a new project in the district, “Walk To The Stop,” where students are encouraged to walk to their bus stops.

In October, NHS freshman Justina Paproski sat down with The Bee to share her experience with working with a made-for-television movie about Frederick Douglass, called Young American Heroes. Justina said she worked and finished the project during her eighth grade year at Newtown Middle School.

Students at Reed Intermediate School enjoyed smoothies during their lunch period on October 14, to help them understand the importance of a healthy balanced diet and exercise.

For a brief time on Wednesday, October 15, NHS students found themselves facing students from across the world who have been suffering from conflict within their country for their entire lives. Representatives of Invisible Children, a nonprofit organization that sends out representatives across the country to raise money and awareness for schools torn apart by war in Uganda, came to NHS armed with a film called GO. It was the school’s first encounter of the year with the program, and junior Samantha Kent made sure throughout the next 100 days of the program that it was not the school’s last encounter.

The night of Wednesday, October 15, brought Don Ramsey’s technology education Newtown Middle School students and their families to view their final projects.

By the next morning, students at the middle school were preparing for the national election on November 4. Social studies teacher Oona Mulligan had her students research candidates and hot topics in this year’s election to have them decide which candidate they were voting for. “Why is it important to cast an informed vote?” Ms Mulligan asked her students at the time.

For the month of October, students at Hawley Elementary School read Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White. As part of the school’s One School One Read program, all students read the book in and out of the classrooms, and enjoyed decorations around the school based on the book.

The winners for this year’s Newtown Middle School Sculpture Contest were announced at the school on Wednesday, November 5. The winner for the contest was a scarecrow called PacMan, created by William Carr, Jay DeStories, Bradley Fish, and Michael Vanber. The scarecrow that came in second place was called Scooby Doo, and was created by Kimmy Gates and Jane Sclafani. The Darth Vader scarecrow came in third place, and it was created by Wyatt Depuy, Christopher Erikson, Collin Hall, Pieter Martino, and Alex Roche.

A ghost appeared on the stage at Newtown High School in the beginning of November when Blithe Spirit, a comedy written by Noel Coward, was performed and directed by students. Director and senior Sonia Brand-Fisher told The Bee that the students in the cast had been wonderful.

Newtown Middle School was a sad place after Saturday, November 8, when the school lost one of its own, according to Principal Diane Sherlock. Ms Sherlock, at the time, said it was important for the school to notify students immediately of the death of 13-year-old Brennan Merrick. Ms Sherlock said the students were wonderful in reaction, and they were working through the loss together.

A trebuchet was flinging pumpkins across the back lawn at NMS on November 12, when Marc Michaud, the creator of the giant catapult and an educational aide at the school, brought the trebuchet to the school from its previous home at his father’s house.

During two after school presentations at NHS, Assistant Principal Jason Hiruo prepared students and faculty for visitors from the school’s Chinese Sister School to arrive in late January. Mr Hiruo told the crowd on November 25 that volunteers were needed to help make the visitors stay special.

For the first time, stars and other employees from World Wrestling Entertainment brought letters from students to this year’s Tribute To The Troops, a holiday special produced by WWE where service personnel are visited. Students at Reed Intermediate School were chosen to write letters for the special because of the popularity of the St Valentine’s Day Project, an effort for students in three schools in the district to write valentines to soldiers this year, has had in the past. The students voices were also added to the special on NBC on December 20, after being recorded at the school in December.