Board of Education

Board of Ed Divided on Best Calendar for 2025-26 School Year

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District officials are trying to figure out the most sensible way to build more wiggle room into the proposed 2025-26 school year schedule. As a proposed calendar now before the Board of Education has it, that school year would start on a Thursday in August and end on a Thursday the following June, meaning the final week of school could absorb just one snow day before threatening to push the academic year into the following week. However, the district by its own policy doesn’t push the school year beyond the third full week of June. “So there’s different things that are conspiring against us here for that start date,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said during the Board’s regular meeting, held Dec. 4 in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. 

The ‘25-’26 school year is already an anomaly in that several months will see a reduction in the number of school days just because of how the holidays fall.

Business

Holiday Shopping 2023: Stewart’s Wine & Spirits

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For today’s installment of our local holiday shopping series, we met up with Larry Klem, store manager at Stewart’s Wine & Spirits. Here’s our conversation. ***

New Canaanite: Tell me about Stewart’s Wine & Spirits and its customers. Larry Klem: We have a really, I would say, vibrant customer base. Pretty wine savvy customers.

Business
Dooney & Bourke is coming to South and Elm. Credit: Michael Dinan

Luxury Leather Goods Store ‘Dooney & Bourke’ Coming to Elm Street

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A luxury leather goods store is coming to downtown New Canaan. Norwalk-based Dooney & Bourke, maker of bags and accessories, is moving into the vacant space at the corner of South Avenue and Elm Street, according to signs going up on the building. 

The company has “fostered a relationship with premier European craftsmen, refining techniques to create high performance materials with enduring quality,” according to its website. “The entrepreneurial spirit of Dooney & Bourke remains. We are privately run, independent, and dedicated to the exceptional artisanal craftsmanship that has separated our brand from its competitors.”

The space at 66 Elm St. has been vacant since Heather Gaudio Fine Art moved to Greenwich in September. 

Dooney & Bourke was founded in Norwalk in 1975 by Peter Dooney as a purveyor of belts, suspenders and small leather goods, according to its website.

Ann Cheney

Holiday Shopping 2023: Walter Stewart’s Market

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For this installment of our local holiday shopping series, we talked to Ann Cheney, store manager at Walter Stewart’s Market. 

Here’s a transcription of our conversation. ***

New Canaanite: Talk to me a little bit about Walter Stewart’s and what the store likes to do during the holidays. 

Ann Cheney: Walter Stewart’s is the New Canaan community market and we like to have everything for our many customers, whether it’s an easy dinner preparation or an extravagant pull-out-all-the-stops holiday meal, meal ingredient or catering. We do that all throughout December.  

What kind of things are people coming in to look for, specifically, during the holidays? Our customers are looking for special gifts, treats for the grandchildren, treats for themselves. We offer a wide variety of candy and floral items, in terms of gifts.

Around Town

NCHS Junior Launches Effort To Raise Money for Civilians Caught in Israel-Hamas Conflict

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New Canaan High School junior Tahlia Scherer reached out to us the week prior to Thanksgiving, expressing concerns about civilians caught amid the armed conflict between Hamas and Israel, which declared war following a surprise attack on Oct. 7. She’s raising funds for the American Red Cross, which is providing civilian aid in the Israel-Hamas Conflict—see this GoFundMe page. (Note: Here’s a list of other ways to volunteer and donate, from the Center for International Disaster Information.)

We put some questions to Scherer about her efforts. 

Our exchange follows. ***

New Canaanite: Tell us about how you came to hear about the Israel-Hamas conflict and what was your initial reaction to it?