The Newtown Board of Education (BOE) conducted an online meeting on February 16, where information about SAT scheduling and math curricula were presented. The public was able to call in for comments.

BOE Chair Michelle Embree Ku shared the chair report and updated the group that the BOE’s budget proposal was presented to the Board of Finance last week; the BOE’s COVID expenses were presented to the State of Connecticut; the CABE Legislative Breakfast took place; volunteers are needed to participate in nurses negotiations; and liaisons are needed to join Superintendent of Schools Dr Lorrie Rodrigue at PTA meetings regarding budgets.

Ku added, “The Hawley [Elementary School] HVAC project will not be part of the April referendum. There is time needed to get a more precise estimate for that project… presumably the Legislative Council will put it on the November referendum.”

Dr Rodrigue then shared the superintendent report.

She and Mark Pompano, head of security for Newtown School District, will be speaking at Penn State virtually next month for its Director’s Academy.

“We’ve spoken in the past on safety and security, and this year the focus is more on the social/emotional practices. We learn just as much from them as they do from us, so we are excited about that again,” Dr Rodrigue said.

In addition, she said they are working with Tony Gentile from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who she described as being part of the executive security committee and who has been working with Newtown since 12/14.

“Typically, he has his interns create a research project that will be beneficial to Newtown, and we get to choose or select a topic that’s timely and we feel will be beneficial,” Dr Rodrigue said. “This year, we chose bullying. Staff, students, and parents will receive a brief survey about this topic about bullying.”

The survey will be anonymous and multiple choice with no open-ended questions. It will go out later this month, then will be collected for a report that will be shared at a later date.

“It will give us, I think, a healthy picture of the perceptions of bullying in our district, which I think is important,” Dr Rodrigue said.

Moving on to other updates, she said that Blackboard is being reviewed as a possible app for the district. The idea is to start implementing it in the coming school year, and it could replace current systems used.

Dr Rodrigue described Blackboard as “a one-stop shop” for receiving and sending communication.

She explained, “This actually was brought upon by various incidents and issues that parents have had trying to navigate all the various websites and systems of communication and things like paying for lunch.”

For the staffing report, Dr Rodrigue said there have been no resignations in the last month; there are some job positions still available; and there have been multiple hires, including a certified teacher, three building subs, six para-educators, and one clerical.

“We also had one retirement, and that is Jill Beaudry. While we typically speak on behalf of all our retirees at the end of the year, typically in June, I wanted to speak briefly on Jill…” Dr Rodrigue said. “Jill was hired for the 2004-05 school year.”

She taught fifth grade before being the acting assistant principal at Reed Intermediate School in 2013, then officially became the assistant principal the following year.

“Jill has done an excellent job and really garnered the trust of the entire staff… we wish her well and will do so more formally in June, along with our other retirees from the other union groups,” Dr Rodrigue said.

Ku added, “She was also instrumental in getting our school start time changed. She was very much a part of that whole discussion.”

New Business

Later in the meeting, Newtown High School (NHS) Math Department Chair Eugene Hall gave a presentation titled, “Precalculus and College Math Topics Curricula,” on behalf of the math department.

It was noted that the precalculus curriculum was written by Charlotte Cavataro, Chris Pearson, and Shawn Tierney during June of 2019. Adjustments were made after feedback from the district math committee, the Curriculum Council, Assistant Superintendent Anne Uberti, and the Math Department team.

For the college math topics, it was also mentioned that the curriculum was written by Kelly Murphy, Shawn Tierney, and Kathy Bremer, and included CPA college math topics, CPB Intermediate Algebra, and the fourth year math option after taking the core Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Geometry courses.

Hall’s presentation was the first read, and the board will review the agenda items further at the next meeting.

For the NHS March 19 schedule and March 24 school-wide SAT schedule, Dr Rodrigue said that communication has been sent out to parents informing them that March 19 is an early release for the high school even though there are no conferences there that day as there are at the other schools.

NHS Principal Dr Kimberly Longobucco elaborated on the March 19 schedule saying, “Instead of a 12:30 pm dismissal and one remote class, we’ll dismiss at 11:30 am and take two remote classes, so the high school will still be on a full day on that Friday, March 19, which is the second day of conferences [for] K-8. That allows our students to ride the buses home with the middle schoolers and not conflict with any K-6 three-hour early release for their conferences.”

On March 24, the high school will have its schoolwide SAT day for juniors.

To make the schedule work, Dr Longobucco said, “We’ll need our ninth, tenth, and twelfth graders to be home, because based on the college board recommendations we can only test between 12 to 14 people in a room, which means we need all of our rooms at the high school in order to test approximately 370 juniors.”

High school students in the other three grades will need to be learning remotely that day.

Dr Longobucco continued, “By utilizing every classroom and having such small testing rooms, we also need a whole lot more proctors than we typically would, which means I need to utilize my whole staff to be proctors in the classrooms, which ultimately brings us to the final goal of needing approval to do an asynchronous day for our 9th, 10th, and 12th graders that day, which means teachers would post their assignments before 8 am and they would have to be completed by 3 pm to get attendance for the day.”

These aspects were not an issue for NHS last fall for PSATs, because students were learning remotely on Wednesdays during its hybrid schedule. Now that NHS is back to a five-day schedule at school, they are facing this unique situation.

Dr Longobucco said they talked to transportation about when students would be able to go home, which adds another level of complexity.

“The SAT ends around 12 pm, but we can’t dismiss at 12:30 pm on a Wednesday, because K-6 dismisses at 12:30 pm on a Wednesday. And so we will be dismissing at 1:30 pm, which is actually after the extended time students. And students can either leave when they are done, should they drive themselves or have their own ride, or they can wait for a bus, which would be able to pick them up later for a ride home at 1:30 pm,” Dr Longobucco said.

Students will be able to eat their grab-and-go lunch and be monitored in the two cafeterias then travel home if they choose to do so.

Ku inquired if the BOE needed to vote for the approval of these aspects and Dr Rodrigue said it is more informational, because there is no alternative.

BOE member Deborra Zukowski inquired if the two cafeterias could safely accommodate all the juniors and allow them all to socially distance.

Dr Longobucco said, “I would guess about 80 percent [of students] will find themselves a ride home at 12:30 pm, and we’ll be dealing with a much smaller amount to stay to go home on the buses.”

She did assure that if by chance the entire grade were to stay and go to the cafeterias, they could handle doing so.

For more information about upcoming Board of Education meetings, visit newtown-ct.gov/board-education.