School Bd Reviews NHS Bids—

Reed Principal Announces Resignation

By Eliza Hallabeck

The Board of Education learned of multiple upcoming events and information affecting the school district during its meeting on April 7, including the announcement of the resignation of Reed Intermediate School Principal Donna Denniston.

Dr Robinson reported to the board that Ms Denniston has announced her retirement after 31 years in education.

“I’m certain opening Reed has been a highlight,” Dr Robinson said. “She had the opportunity to do something that every committed administrator in education would love to do, and she did a wonderful job. The legacy that Donna leaves is a true tribute to her caring and commitment to the children of Newtown,” Dr Robinson said, “and we will start making plans for a committee to do a search. It will be tough shoes to fill.”

During Dr Robinson’s Superintendent’s Report to the board she said there have been a number of recent savings for the school district.

“The owner/operators have volunteered to give up their contract raises for this next year. This will save the district $55,870 in next year’s budget,” said Dr Robinson. “They deserve special thanks for their help in this very difficult year.”

The district has also received three grants; a $19,000 Homeland Security Grant to improve security at the high school, a $31,932 grant for freshmen and sophomore career and technical education students to use a career technology program called Naviance, The Newtown High School Innovation Grant for $35,000 to go toward a curriculum in health science and technology.

Preliminary reviews from Newtown High School expansion bids show positive results, according to Dr Robinson.

“The preliminary word from those reviews is that the rebid has produced positive results, with the total of the bids coming in below budget, including the bid alternates,” said Dr Robinson. “Possibly a million below.”

The official results from the bids will not be available until April 20.

“I just personally want to say how absolutely thrilled I am with the high school bids,” Board of Education Vice Chair Lillian Bittman said. “I just have a huge sense of relief, and I hope the whole community just feels the same way.”

Dr Robinson also announced at the meeting that the scheduled date for the high school graduation is June 25, and the scheduled date for the eighth grade moving up ceremony is June 24.

As previously reported in last week’s edition of The Bee, the meeting was attended by a standing-room-only group of supporters for MTM Transportation, a local fleet operator, and the owner/operators in town, in response to MTM’s contract being opened for bids recently. During the meeting, Superintendent Robinson reported to the board that an option facing the board would be to divide the award of the contract between MTM and All-Star Transportation, an out of town transportation company that had the lowest bid on the largest portion of the bids. The board deliberated the issue of awarding the contract, but made no decision by the end of the night.

In the event of an outside company being chosen, Dr Robinson said that company “would want to hire our drivers.” When asked by board member Anna Wiedemann if there was a backup plan if drivers in town would not want to drive for another company, Dr Robinson said with the current economic situation, it would probably not be hard to find drivers.