Government

‘Is This Really the Year?’: Councilman Flags $35,000 Request for NCHS Club Sports in Proposed Budget

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A proposal that would create a way for New Canaan High School club sports to apply for some public financial support through the district was met last week with a raised eyebrow from at least one town funding bodies’ member concerned about its scope and timing. Town Councilman Jim Kucharczyk during a budget presentation last week called the $35,000 that the Board of Education is seeking to set aside for a pilot program “a nontrivial amount.”

“In a year where we are already funding a major renovation project at Saxe” and facing a required, steep increase in healthcare costs in the district, Kucharczyk said he would “raise the question: Is this really the year we need to allocate $35,000 with everything else that’s going on to the fencing and ski teams?”

His comments, made during New Canaan Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Bryan Luizzi’s Feb. 2 budget presentation to the Town Council and Board of Finance, address a proposed new policy (embedded in full as a PDF at the end of this article) that the Board of Education supported by way of including the additional $35,000 in its final proposed spending plan. Sports such as squash are not part of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, or CIAC, because not enough public high schools in the state have a team. That often relegates a sport to private funding only in New Canaan, because it means the district’s Athletic Department cannot offer funds, and the bylaws of the New Canaan High School All Sports Booster Club only allow disbursement of funds to CIAC sports.

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NCHS Sophomore Graham Jameson Impressive as New Canaan Ski Team Pursues 5th Straight State Title

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The New Canaan Ski Team had its second race of the year as it targets a fifth straight state championship. On Wednesday, Jan. 21, everything went as planned with one major exception—a new team star emerged. Sophomore Graham Jameson, a weekend warrior on the Southern Vermont junior racing circuit, had a breakout performance, with an incredible second-place overall finish. Jameson shocked the field with the fastest run overall in the first run and hung on with a very solid third-place finish in the second run, only beaten in the overall by Staples High School’s Campbell Ashman. After the heavy rain last weekend, questions were raised about snow conditions at local ski area Mount Southington, but the staff at the hill did it’s best to prepare the course in order to accommodate the 14 teams racing that evening.

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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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Strong Start to Season for Four-Time Defending Champion NCHS Ski Team

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It’s rare that teams win state championships. It’s even more rare for teams to repeat winning state championships. Think about the New Canaan High School Rams football team … There is another varsity team at New Canaan High School that is currently competing for its fifth consecutive State Championship. The New Canaan High School Varsity Ski Team is a club team that competes in the 28-school Connecticut Interscholastic Ski League (CISL) each winter.

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School Board to Weigh Funding for Varsity Club Sports in Budget Request

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District officials as they finalize a budget request for next year are looking at whether to include stipends for varsity club sports such as squash, skiing and crew. Board of Education members on Monday said that treating the separate sports fairly means establishing firm criteria in areas such as program history and participation. “I think it is really important for us to be consistent and I appreciate that we all love the sports that we love,” Secretary Dionna Carlson said at the school board’s meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “But as a board I think we have to be consistent.”

The comments came as Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi proposed a budget for fiscal year 2016 to the BOE. The full board is scheduled to come back Jan.