2020-21 Academic Year: District’s Phased Plan Calls For All Students To Be in Public Schools in Early-October

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If health data supports it, New Canaan Public Schools will aim to allow students to attend all classes in-person in early October, district officials said Monday. School will look different at that time, officials said during a regular meeting of the Board of Education, held via videoconference. For example, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said, those in school will be wearing masks and observing physical distancing, hallways will be marked one-way, classrooms will be assigned designated bathrooms, visitors will be prohibited and all assemblies will be held virtually. Though Fairfield County has what health officials are calling “low community spread” of COVID-19 virus—meaning the state is allowing local districts to fully reopen with in-person learning—the first several weeks of the upcoming academic year will be spent re-acclimating students and parents, as well as teachers and faculty, to the changed environment, officials said. Available here in a continuously updated operations guide, the four-phase plan is geared toward the school community’s “on-boarding and reengagement,” Luizzi said.

Dr. Bryan Luizzi

Q&A with Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi: ‘Charting Our Course’ for This Academic Year

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New Canaan Public Schools one week ago published a continuously updated operations guide for the 2020-21 academic school year. Titled “Charting Our Course” and embedded on a new NCPS website page with other COVID 19-related information for school families, it includes timelines leading up to the first day of school, guiding principles for the district as it makes decisions about just how school will look this coming year, modeling, details on masks and social distancing, contact information for liaisons, busing information and more. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi also helped lead town hall-style info sessions with question-and-answer sessions with participants. 

We asked Luizzi about the guide, sessions and what New Canaan students and families could be looking at for the upcoming academic year. Here’s our exchange. 

New Canaanite: You sent the New Canaan Public Schools community a link to a “live” operations guide called “Charting Our Course” that will be updated in the coming days and weeks with information on how the district will handle the 2020-21 school year. Two of the bullet points appear to be that whether the physical school buildings open, and to what extent, will depend on “community spread” of the virus, and that a decision will be made around Aug.

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Board of Ed Debates Adoption of Proposed Goals on ‘Equity, Diversity and Inclusion’

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The New Canaan Board of Education last week debated whether to adopt formal goals for the upcoming school year designed to address issues of race through staff training, changes to curriculum and parent education, among other areas. 

Draft goals discussed at the Board’s July 13 meeting (they can be found here, under Goal 4-2, and embedded below as a PDF) include creation of what would be the districts’ first “statement on equity, diversity and inclusion,” as well as an update on Social Studies curriculum and identification of “additional opportunities in other content areas to increase content on diversity and inclusion K-12.”

Some Board members voiced support for adopting the goals, while others said they were concerned about introducing the changes during an academic year that likely will include some form of distance learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic that strains the “bandwidth” of educators and where spending on schools is tight. Sheri West said she strongly supported the new goals and that it’s “crucial that at this moment in history, that we as a Board, as educational leaders in our district that we communicate the importance of these values and really truly that they are at the cornerstone of what we do—our values and our belief system and our actions.”

“I especially like the addition of the professional development and of the parent education,” West said during the 3.5-hour meeting, held via videoconference. “One thing I would like added is I believe in order for us to execute on these goals, we are going to need budget dollars to bring in an expert consultant. I don’t think this is work that we can do alone. I think many districts have already or are hiring DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] leaders for their districts.

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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.

COVID-19 New Canaan

Q&A: Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi on Next Academic Year

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The state on Monday released more detailed guidance on how individual school districts should prepare for the academic year that commences this fall. Based on that guidance, we put some questions to New Canaan Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi. Here’s our exchange. New Canaanite: Clearly, we don’t know what the public health data will say come Aug. 31, the scheduled first day of school.