Board of Education

District Hires 44 Educators for Upcoming School Year; Higher Pay Offered To More Active Substitute Teachers

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District officials said this week that they’re offering more money to substitute teachers who commit to working three more days within a week. New Canaan Public Schools administrators met this summer with two companies that “professionally secure substitute candidates” in order to address a recurring shortage within the district, according to Director of Human Resources Darlene Pianka. While discussing the issue among members of the administration’s “cabinet,” Director of Finance Sean O’Keefe shared the higher-pay strategy that came out of Greenwich. “So if a substitute is working for us and commits to working three or more days within a week, we’re looking to offer more money, and hope to secure them for us,” Pianka said during an update on hiring at Monday’s Board of Education meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. 

“And we put that out there on the website and hopefully announce that in public. We’ll see how that goes.

News

‘We Could Not Accommodate Those Students’: NCPS Projected To Welcome Largest-Ever Kindergarten Class in 2026

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Based on the number of babies born to New Canaan families last year, the public schools are poised in the 2026-27 academic year to welcome a kindergarten class larger than the district’s facilities currently can handle, officials say. New Canaan’s 201 known “live births” in 2021, added to the town’s regular move-ins of young families coming for the outstanding public schools, is projected to result in a kindergarten class of 397 students five years later, officials said at the Board of Education’s regular meeting last week. “We could not accommodate those students given the facilities we currently have,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said during the Nov. 7 meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “It’s just too many more students than our schools could handle.

Board of Education

District: Overall Enrollment Down 88 Students from Last October 

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Enrollment in New Canaan Public Schools as of last week stood at 4,134 district-wide compared to 4,222 students on Oct. 1 of 2020, officials said. The overall 88-student difference pre-K through 12th grade likely will change again once all move-ins are accounted for in figures that administrators present in November, Director of Human Resources Darlene Pianka told members of the Board of Education at their regular meeting, held Aug. 23 in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. As of Aug.

Board of Education

District Enrollment Projected To Decrease by 81 Students Next Year

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Enrollment in New Canaan Public Schools is projected to decrease by 81 students next year, according to data released this week. The projected decline for the 2021-22 school year—from 4,176 to 4,095 students in kindergarten through twelfth grade—reflects decreases at all levels, according to Darlene Pianka, the district’s human resources director. The elementary schools are projected to see 34 fewer students overall next academic year, Pianka told members of the Board of Education during their regular meeting Monday. Citing projections from Marlborough, Mass.-based New England School Development Council or ‘NESDEC,’ she said Saxe Middle School is expected to decline by 15 students and New Canaan High School by 32. “Generally speaking, the trend that is indicated by our demographers is that we are in a period of stable but slightly decreasing enrollment in the middle and the elementary schools,” Pianka said during the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at NCHS as well as via videoconference. 

In a memo sent to the Board of Ed prior to her presentation, Pianka said, “If we look at projections a few years out we might describe our enrollment as on a slow steady decrease from 4,176 students this year, decreasing to 4,101 students in the 2022-23 school year, a projected decrease of 75 net students, followed by future decreases in enrollment.”

Current enrollment stands at 4,234 students including pre-K students and those placed out-of-district—up 10 from last year’s total, Pianka said.

News

School District Sees Rise in Enrollment for Second Straight Year

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With another increase expected this year, enrollment in New Canaan Public Schools is bucking recent projections that it would flatten, officials said Monday. The district now has 4,194 students enrolled for the upcoming academic year—28 more than last year and 29 more than projected, according to NCPS Director of Human Resources Darlene Pianka. (The figures do not include preschools.)

During an enrollment update to the Board of Education on Monday night, Pianka said New Canaan’s elementary schools now have 1,491 students enrolled—14 more than at the end of June—and that the district will add a kindergarten section at East School and fourth-grade section at South School to maintain acceptable class-size levels. Responding to Board member Dionna Carlson’s observation that recent projections showing a flattening in enrollment are not bearing out, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said, “It’s not bearing out and it’s not bearing out in the region.”

“We are hearing from the towns around us that where it was bearing out, they are seeing a turnaround,” he said during the meeting, held via videoconference. “We are a little concerned about a labor shortage, so we are aggressively going into the market to shore up those long-term subs that are certified positions.