NewCanaanite.com (https://newcanaanite.com/category/new-canaan-news/new-canaan-schools/page/2)
We don’t just cover the Board of Education and issues affecting New Canaan Public Schools parents, including testing mandates and teacher evaluations, new hires in the district and programs in our schools—we also celebrate students and teacher achievements and spotlight outstanding work at all levels.
Board of Education incumbent Phil Hogan, a Republican, is seeking re-election. The GOP holds a 6-3 majority on the nine-member school board. Five seats are up for election: three currently held by Republicans, two by Democrats. There are three Republicans and three Democrats running for Board of Ed. Here’s our exchange with Hogan.
Though a problem with a bus routing software that’s new to the district has caused “significant transportation challenges,” the superintendent of schools said last week, it didn’t take away from the positive energy and learning that students experienced at the start of the school year. “Our students are engaged, our teachers are energized,” Dr. Bryan Luizzi told members of the Board of Education during their regular meeting, held Sept. 2 in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. He continued: “It’s really wonderful and we’ve been out and about throughout the week in the buildings to see that firsthand. That being said, though, I also want to acknowledge that we’ve had some significant transportation challenges this past week.
New Canaan Public Schools in the two weeks prior to the start of school lost three certified staff members to relocations, though the district is swiftly hiring for those jobs, officials say. The district welcomed 34 new teachers at its induction and officials thought, at the time, that the schools were fully hired “in the certified area of our staffing,” according to Darlene Pianka, director of human resources.
“In the last two weeks we’ve had three resignations all due to the fact that people were relocating,” Pianka told members of the Board of Education at their regular meeting, held Sept. 2 in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “So we were unaware of that. Our wonderful administrators—and I’m not just saying that because they’re here—jumped on those situations relatively quickly.”
She continued: “And as of today, we’ve hired one of the positions, which is a literacy specialist at East School, and we are solidly in process for a technology integrator at Saxe and a psychologist that is shared between the high school and West.”
The comments came during a staffing update from Pianka.
“The Dome,” New Canaan High School’s new immersive learning theater—a space formerly known as “the planetarium”—saw a surge in usage last year as it became a center of the district’s learning, officials say. The Board of Education received an update on The Dome’s growth and future plans at its Monday meeting. “The Dome has become a remarkable resource for our faculty and staff, transforming the way that we explore, learn, and connect,” NCHS Director of Innovation Melinda Meyer told board members at their regular meeting, held in the Wagner Room at NCHS and via YouTube. “In its first full year, The Dome hosted experiences that inspired curiosity across disciplines, sparked collaboration among teachers, and immersed students in learning that felt both personal and shared,” Meyer said as she began her presentation. The Dome officially opened in the spring of 2024.
Consultants this week laid out a proposal to add a fourth elementary school in New Canaan. On Monday, at the Board of Education’s regularly scheduled meeting, representatives from MP Planning Group and SLAM Collaborative walked officials through a three-phase plan to create a “North School” off of Smith Ridge Road/Route 123 to address capacity concerns while renovating four other schools in town. MP Planning Principal Pat Gallagher said there’s been “a longstanding desire within the community to move to a K-5 and 6-8 grade configuration at the schools, so we looked at the best options to move towards this goal.”
“Also, there are capacity concerns at our schools moving forward, and we want to create smaller learning communities by shrinking the student population at the elementary and middle schools,” he said during the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School and via YouTube. Gallagher detailed how, while schools should strive for 90 to 95% occupancy of their planning capacity, East School is operating at nearly 100% and West School is nearing that mark. “Buildings at or close to 100% of their capacity experience operational impacts,” he said.