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Letter: Board of Ed Urges New Canaan To Support Saxe Building Project

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The Board of Education has been closely following the Saxe Building Committee’s (SBC) work throughout their process of analyzing the educational space needs at Saxe, recommending changes to meet those needs and designing the improvements deemed critical. The Board of Education fully supports the SBC’s recommended project to renovate the Saxe Auditorium and visual performing arts/music area and to expand the current building to add a net of 12 new classrooms.

Why Saxe Needs More Space

Built in 1957, Saxe Middle School was last renovated from 1997 to 1999 to accommodate 1200 students. Since this time (15-plus years), Saxe’s enrollment has increased. Current enrollment is at 1,327 students, up from the 1,292 students enrolled at this time last year. The latest projections anticipate that enrollment at Saxe will steadily increase over the next few years, peaking in 2024 at 1,376 students, and remaining stable at around 1,350 afterwards.

News

Letter: Update on Saxe Building Project, Next Steps

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After extensive research, the Saxe Building Committee recommends Option 3A (which includes auditorium renovation, music classroom expansion, and a 12-classroom addition) to best meet the educational space needs at Saxe in light of already high and increasing enrollment, state and federal mandates, and to provide flexibility as programs evolve. The total estimated cost of Option 3A is $16.9 million, which would be bonded by the town. On May 5th, the Board of Education voted unanimously to approve Option 3A. On May 6th, the Board of Finance (BOF) approved $750,000 for pre-construction funding including the fees for the architect to create a schematic design of the proposed renovations and addition. On May 20th, the Town Council (TC) will vote on giving the final approval for the pre-construction funding to keep the process moving forward.

News

NCHS Squash Team Funding Nixed as Board of Ed Proposes 4.87% Spending Increase

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Saying the district should prioritize the hiring of additional classroom teachers and hold off on funding varsity club sports until there’s a well-defined policy in place for doing so, the Board of Education on Monday proposed a 2015-16 operating budget that includes no money for the New Canaan High School Squash Team. The $84,809,121 proposed operating budget is the major driver of the spending on the public schools, which in turn drives about two-thirds of all town spending. The school board said it’s deferring about $255,000 in spending on educators such as a part-time writing teacher at West School, student deans at the elementary schools and three general education teaching assistants. For Board of Ed Secretary Dionna Carlson, while increased participation in extracurricular activities such as squash is a “wonderful” goal, “I think we need to prioritize where the dollars are, and I would probably say I would prefer to see that $20,000 spent on a writing specialist right now.”

“And I think maybe we are putting cart the before the horse, and maybe we should have a policy in place of how we can handle these extracurricular activities and then we fund them—instead of putting a pool there without a policy that we are reviewing as a board,” Carlson said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “I think we have bigger things that we are not funding this year which are disappointing, I am sure, to many parents in the district.

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Survey: New Canaan School Parents Want Info through Email, Text and District Websites—Not Social Media

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School parents in New Canaan prefer to receive district communications by email or text, rather than social media, and they’re most interested in information on curriculum, assessments and guidance, according to survey results released Monday night. New Canaan Public Schools’ own emails to parents, newsletters and websites rank as primary sources of information, said the majority of respondents to a 10-question online survey that the Board of Education conducted the week of Oct. 13. In all, 1,101 responses came in to the school board’s Communications Committee after 4,182 parent email invites went out—assuming one respondent per household, the figure represents nearly half of the public school families in New Canaan, Committee Chair Sheri West said at a Board of Education meeting. “It was very informative for us to learn that 56 percent of our respondents preferred that we not communicate on social media,” West said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School.

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Board of Ed Re-Elects Chair and Vice Chair, Split on Secretary

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The Board of Education on Monday night re-elected its current chair and vice chair to another year in those offices, and was unable to decide immediately who would serve as the group’s secretary. The group now has 30 days to decide who will fill the role, and can take up the matter at its next meeting (Nov. 17), Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said. During the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School, Chair Hazel Hobbs and Vice Chair Scott Gress were re-elected 8-0 to those roles, with one abstention in each case (Alison Bedula). Both Sheri West and current Board of Ed Secretary Dionna Carlson were put forward for the role of secretary, and each garnered four votes.