Government

Town Approves $682,000 in Contracts To Purchase Furniture, Equipment for Addition at Saxe Middle School; Project on Time and Budget

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Town officials last week approved contracts totaling $682,000 for furniture and equipment for the Saxe Middle School addition that’s taking shape along Farm Road. The contracts and funds, built into the overall $18.6 million project, came before the Board of Selectmen in its capacity as the purchasing agent for the town. Part of “phase three” of the Saxe renovation and expansion, the items received state approval and have been vetted by New Canaan Public Schools administrators to ensure all technology equipment meets district system requirements, according to Penny Rashin, chairman of the Saxe Building Committee. “Really this is the technical equipment and the furnishings for the classrooms being built and renovated,” Rashin told the selectmen at their regular meeting, held March 7 at Town Hall. The $682,000 total includes $440,000 for furniture, fixtures and equipment, up to $212,000 for technology equipment and a contingency of $30,000.

Around Town

‘She Has Given Me Life Twice’: New Canaan Schoolteacher’s Mom Donates Kidney To Her Son

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Though Michael Patrona first was diagnosed with kidney disease 15 years ago, he’s always hoped that it would require only medication to treat into his old age. Yet in the last two years, Patrona—a popular fifth-grade teacher at Saxe Middle School and 1994 New Canaan High School graduate—has felt increasingly run down after work. One month ago, a routine blood test revealed that Patrona’s levels of creatinine—a chemical molecule transported to the kidneys—had skyrocketed dangerously. He needed a transplant, and faced the prospect of undergoing dialysis until a live kidney could be found. But as soon as she learned that her son needed a kidney, Patrona’s mom, Eileen Hynes, got tested, discovered she was a match and signed up to donate her organ.

News

Saxe Friends, Both 12, To Launch Weather Balloon Into Outer Space on Saturday

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New Canaan’s Henry Benton and Peter Vigano together made a compressed gas Ping Pong ball launcher when they were in the third grade. As fourth-graders, the classmates created a computer game and as fifth-graders, a camera. Last year, as a sixth-grader, Henry built a computer. Then one day last summer he had an epiphany while watching a science TV show “where they were testing the durability of action cameras,” Henry recalled Thursday afternoon from a STEM room at Saxe Middle School during an Open Lab period, his pal Peter standing nearby and the pair of them wearing new, matching shirts. “There was one story where the action camera fell when someone was skydiving and I thought, ‘Why not a weather balloon if they’re that durable?

Government

‘There Has Got To Be a Better Solution’: Town Officials Reject Single-Lane Exit from Saxe at South Avenue

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Saying motorists already back up onto South Avenue during busy drop-off and pick-up times at Saxe Middle School, town officials on Thursday night bucked at a recommendation from the state to change the driveway’s two-lane exit to one. Doing so would exacerbate a problem of traffic and would be “a near impossibility,” Police Commission Chairman Stuart Sawabini said during the group’s regular monthly meeting. “I am more than in favor of the Saxe expansion and all the rest, but what you are suggesting will create such a huge bottleneck,” Sawabini said during the meeting, held at the New Canaan Police Department. “There has got to be a better solution. My other understanding is that the exiting cars off of the back [of Saxe, on Farm Road] are not allowed because it’s bus time and the gate closes.

News

‘You Had Me At Hello’: First Selectman Supports Addition of Special Ed Admin in Public Schools

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The town’s highest elected official last week voiced support for the Superintendent of Schools’ request to add a third full-time special education administrator to New Canaan Public Schools’ staff. Designed to more effectively manage special ed staff and cases, the addition is “something important to my values,” First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said Wednesday during the first presentation of Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi’s draft proposed budget to the Board of Selectmen. “If we have enrollment that is driving this, then that’s [why] we all voted for [the expansion at] Saxe,” Mallozzi said during the presentation, held in a board room at Town Hall. “This position here is some that on an emotional and any kind of level seems very important, so I am delighted to see it in the budget.”

“You had me at ‘Hello’ with this,” Mallozzi said with respect to the request, offering high praise for the two administrators in place now and their ability to carry a large workload. Currently, two administrators divide the work of overseeing special education in the public schools—evaluating and supervising all staff, communicating with parents, sitting in on meetings, keeping abreast of developments in special ed requirements and regulations—one responsible for pre-K through fifth grade, the other sixth grade through “Launch” (any special ed student through age 21).