School Board Votes On 2012-13 School Calendar

By Eliza Hallabeck

The Board of Education approved a 2012-13 school calendar and voted to have a single e-mail address created that will automatically send messages to all BOE members at its Tuesday, March 6, meeting.

After discussion, the proposed 2012-13 school calendar was amended to have the school year’s April break run from April 15 to 19 instead of April 8 to 12, to have some planned early release days rescheduled to allow more consistency between breaks, and to have the projected last day of school publicized with emergency closings in mind, but still listed as the true last day of school, without closings.

The planned November 2 early release day was made into a full school day, the January 4 early release day was moved to January 18, the February 1 early release day was moved to February 15, and the planned April 5 early release day was moved to April 12 in a unanimous vote.

In order to keep the average number of emergency closings as a guide when mapping out the calendar, the board voted to have the paragraph that accompanies the calendar altered. That alteration will be decided during a future board meeting, and will describe when make-up days are available in the calendar.

The board also unanimously voted to have a single e-mail address created for the convenience of anyone seeking to contact all the board members.

Board member Keith Alexander presented the idea to the board. The central e-mail, Mr Alexander explained, will not replace the board members’ individual e-mails, but would allow someone messaging all the members one address to type instead of seven.

Enrollment Projections

Also during the meeting, Newtown’s elementary school principals discussed current enrollment at their schools as compared to estimates formulated by Hyung Chung of H.C. Planning Consultants of Orange in 2010. Ms Leidlein said the principals were asked to share enrollment figures to help the school board determine if any staffing changes could be made for the 2012-13 school year that would effect the school district’s budget now before the Board of Finance.

The estimates prepared by Mr Chung also came up during the meeting when member Richard Gaines presented the Ad Hoc School Facilities Committee’s recommendation that was voted on during a meeting on February 6.

Mr Gaines explained the Ad Hoc School Facilities Committee, which was made up of members from the school board and Legislative Council, decided, after inspection, if a school should close, it should be Reed Intermediate School.

Arriving at that conclusion, Mr Gaines explained, included researching Mr Chung’s enrollment projections, assessing existing space in the school district, meeting with local school officials, and looking at multiple scenarios, like redistricting and costs associated with closing individual schools.

“We looked at a lot of things,” said Mr Gaines.

If a school were to be closed, Mr Gaines said the building’s gymnasium and bathrooms would still need to remain open for use by Parks and Recreation.

If Head O’ Meadow were closed, according to Mr Gaines’s presentation, it would save the school district roughly $1.5 million, if Middle Gate Elementary School were closed the school district would save roughly $1.4 million, and if Reed were closed the school district would save an estimated $3 million.

Mr Gaines explained the group recommended a new enrollment study be completed when student enrollment for the budgeted coming school year is below the amount required to close a school.

“We further recommend that if we were to close a school that at this time we would recommend that we close Reed Intermediate School,” said Mr Gaines.

Reed would more easily be reopened if it were needed again than the other options, Mr Gaines said, and would save the school district the most amount of money.