Board of Education

Superintendent: District Expects to Bring Students Back for In-Person Learning After Break, Ready for Alternative

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The district is expecting to bring students back for continued in-person learning after Christmas break, though if health data points toward going remote again, New Canaan Public Schools are prepared for that, too, officials said last week. The schools and the students, staff and faculty in them “exist in large ecosystem all around us,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said during the Board of Education’s regular meeting, held Dec. 20 in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “People are watching what decisions are being made around us and getting nervous,” Luizzi continued. “And so we are preparing just in case, but we do not intend to have to go out.

Board of Education

‘We’re Going To Miss Her’: Educators Remember East School Kindergarten Teacher Claudia Monaco

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Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi heard from East School kindergarten teacher Claudia Monaco in April 2020, while quarantining with his mother, Rose, at her home in the days after his father, Lawrence, passed away. Luizzi told members of the Board of Education at their regular meeting Monday that he and his mother were undergoing a 14-day quarantine at that time “because we had been with him in the hospital room prior to his passing.”

“And Claudia reached out and invited me to join her kindergarten class,” Luizzi said during the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “And virtually, because we were virtual, we had all shut down in March. And so I jumped in from my mother’s house, where we were quarantining. My mother had been a preschool director for most of her life and career.

Board of Education

Superintendent: District To Collect Vaccination Status of New Canaan Public Schools Families

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Anticipating that the question of requiring masks in school could become local even sooner than mid-February, the district this week will reach out to school parents to verify their own families’ vaccination status so that the data is in hand when the time comes to make a local decision, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said Monday. District officials will draft a plan for the Board of Education’s review that looks at “local data and metrics to make that determination for the district,” Luizzi said during the school board’s regular meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. That data will include vaccination rates, percentage of positive cases, number of cases per 100,000 and “longitudinal trends” that indicate “which way the numbers are moving,” Luizzi said during an update to the Board of Ed on COVID-19. “We are going to be working with our district health advisors and narrow that down and figure out what those ‘cut points’ should be, as we have some experience in the past. To prepare for that, now that the second [COVID-19 vaccine] shot clinic has occurred, we are going to be asking families to indicate their vaccination status for us.

News

Superintendent: Winter Sports Guidance Says Vaccinated Student-Athletes Aren’t Required To Wear Masks In-Game After Dec. 23

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Fully vaccinated students playing some winter sports that since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic have had to wear masks in-game—including basketball, hockey, indoor track and cheerleading—will not need to wear masks while competing after Dec. 23, according to new guidance cited Monday night by Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi. Saying he’d just received the guidance from the CIAC and state Department of Public Health en route to the Board of Education’s meeting, Luizzi said the state agencies are “making some changes.”

“It says ‘partially or unvaccinated participants have to wear their masks the whole time,’ ” Luizzi said during the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School and via videoconference. “They go on to say wrestling does not need to wear masks, swimming and diving does not need to wear masks, again if fully vaccinated, and the same goes with cheerleading, dance and gymnastics. Wrestling was never required because of a fear about the mask itself and choking and what have you.