Board of Education

District Enrollment Projected To Decrease by 81 Students Next Year

By |

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.

Dr. Bryan Luizzi

Podcast: New Canaan Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Bryan Luizzi

By |



This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store),we talk to New Canaan Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Bryan Luizzi. The administration, staff and faculty have successfully opened this academic year by phasing the schools in, sometimes grade-by-grade, from a combined remote and in-person learning or hybrid model, to full in-person learning, K through 12. Yet the town and county also are starting to see a rising infection rate of COVID-19, meaning that much-desired and carefully planned full reopening might not last, at least not continuously. 

Here’s a link to the school district’s continuously updated COVID-19 operations guide. And here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:

News

Superintendent Outlines Revised Re-Entry Plan for Grades 7-12

By |

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi on Thursday outlined an updated re-entry plan for seventh- through twelfth-graders that will see all New Canaan Public Schools students back to full-time in-person learning within two weeks. Under the revised phased plan, grade 7 will switch from the hybrid in-person and remote learning schedule they’ve been in since school started to a full in-person learning option Oct. 12, followed by grades 12 (Oct. 13), 8 (Oct. 15), 11 (Oct.

Board of Education

Superintendent: Ice Hockey, Basketball To Be Limited to Small-Group Conditioning, Non-Contact Drills Indoors

By |

The superintendent of schools said Tuesday that New Canaan will continue following state public health guidance as winter sports such as basketball and ice hockey near, and only small-group conditioning and non-contact drills are recommended indoors. The Connecticut Department of Public Health has said that “high-risk sports” that also include wrestling, lacrosse, competitive cheer and dance should not be played beyond those activities, Dr. Bryan Luizzi said during a special meeting of the Board of Education. “It also recommends that indoor moderate-risk sports should only be played if they could be considered low-risk with mitigation strategies,” Luizzi said during the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School and viewable on the district’s YouTube channel. An example of such a strategy is volleyball, where the wearing of masks moves it from high- to moderate-risk, under DPH findings. “Indoor moderate risk sports such as basketball and hockey that don’t have similar mitigation strategies available, like the masks, are in that case DPH recommends only small-group conditioning and non-contact indoors,” he said.

News

District Plans Phased-In Return to Full In-Person Learning at Saxe Middle School

By |

As has been done successfully at the elementary level, district officials said Wednesday that they plan to bring Saxe Middle School students back to full in-person learning in phases starting next week. Under a plan discussed at a meeting of the Board of Education Reopen Committee and backed by its members, all fifth-graders would return to Saxe on Tuesday, with the sixth grade starting full in-person learning the following Monday, Oct. 5. The approach will help faculty and staff “work through some complexity of that with the arrival, with dismissal, with lunches, with outdoors spaces, with all of what it takes, and even furniture arrangements, things like that,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said the meeting, held via videoconference. 

“And our custodial crew has to work even harder when all the students are back in, because there’s more students in the space, more things to clean and disinfect each night and all of that. So look at fifth grade on Tuesday and then following Monday bring back in the sixth grade.