School Board Starts 2009 With Something Old And Something New

By Eliza Hallabeck

The Board of Education began 2009 with the Newtown High School expansion still very much on its mind, along with a very tough budgeting challenge for the coming year. Also at its first meeting of the year, January 13, board members voted in favor of participating with the state in creating its Secondary School Reform initiative.

During Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson’s update for the school board the topic of the portable classrooms that are planned for the high school was discussed. Board member David Nanavaty said the Legislative Council is questioning whether the portables should be bonded for a 20-year bond.

Dr Robinson said attending the Legislative Council’s planned meeting for the following night, Wednesday, January 14, would be a good idea for school board members, to help them be better informed.

School board member Kathy Fetchick said there are other types of bonds that could be used to obtain the portable classrooms, which the school board has decided to use at the high school to offset overcrowding for the coming school year.

“I just find it interesting, and this is purely my personal point of view,” Mr Nanavaty said, “that we’re hearing about this decision of the Legislative Council’s Financial Subcommittee at the same time we’re hearing from the Board of Selectmen regarding the rebid/redesign.”

 The Board of Education has been requested to meet with members of the Board of Selectmen and potentially other boards in town on the morning of January 22, according to Dr Robinson.

“I think the fear of the other boards,” said school board member Kathy Fetchick, “is we are not going to recoup the $6 million.”

Mr Nanavaty said redesigning the project would cause the project to lose funding and it would be pushed back a year and a half.

“We start from square one again, which seems to me to be the position of some people who have been trying to kill this project for the last two years,” said Mr Nanavaty. “This is what they are looking at. This is what they are looking for. They aren’t looking to have us redesign the project. They are looking to kill this project.”

Dr Robinson said the Morganti Group is working on scheduling the rebids now with the Bureau of School Facilities. Bids are planned to go out to contractors the week of February 23, and planned to come back a month later in March, Dr Robinson said while referencing a letter from Morganti.

One of the biggest issues, Dr Robinson said, is that a redesign would require more money to be spent, leaving the town with less of a project.

“This time of the year we are trying to put the budget together,” said Dr Robinson. “When I should have been working on how do we find these cuts, I’m working on this.”

Dr Robinson said the Board of Finance’s decision to cut the proposed budget to 95 percent of what it was last year is a critical issue facing the district now.

“Just the contracted salaries as a rollover with absolutely no increases anywhere else is going to be over four percent,” Dr Robinson said. “To get to no increases is going to be horrific.”

Discussions with unions have already started, according to Dr Robinson, and the idea is for each union to decide on a wage freeze.

“Maybe if we all circle the wagons this year, then we can save people,” said Dr Robinson.

“The only way we can get this budget down, is people. There is just no other way,” Dr Robinson said. “All my conversations before and after the holidays, I feel like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, because I am just constantly delivering bad news.”

The discussions with the unions are still taking place.

Dr Robinson also told the school board during its meeting that the state is looking for districts to participate in a Secondary School Reform, which will focus on the quality of secondary education. There are three components of the state’s reform program, the Student Success Plan, Support Systems/School Environment, and the Capstone Experience.

The idea, according to Dr Robinson, is if districts participate in the creation of the reform project, then those districts will have had a say in the project prior to having to conform to the specific aspects in the future.

The board voted in favor of looking into participating with the state.