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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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Officials: Saxe Needs Not Just Auditorium Overhaul, But Also Arts Space Expansion—Total Cost $10.1 Million

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Even an estimated $5.3 million renovation of the Saxe Middle School auditorium won’t accommodate a burgeoning student population, meet visual and performing arts space needs and bring much-needed flexibility to classroom scheduling, according to town officials overseeing a renovation of the facility. Creating sufficient storage and practice and classroom space for an increasingly large student body will require a footprint expansion of about 6,200 square feet off of the building’s south side—a project whose early estimate comes in at about $10.1 million, an owner’s rep for the project said at the Board of Education meeting Monday. The estimate is conservative, said Gene Torone, executive vice president of construction services as Glastonbury-based S/L/A/M Collaborative. Though some money may be saved in lower-cost materials, the figure doesn’t include removal of contaminants that officials expect to find as more testing is done on the auditorium, which is original to the 1957 building. “There is evidence of some [hazardous materials],” Torone said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School.

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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.

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Schools Superintendent Proposes 5 Percent Increase in Spending

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Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi on Monday night proposed an operating budget for the district of $84,912,121 in fiscal year 2016—a 5 percent increase over current spending. The figure is driven mainly by staffing costs tied to rising enrollment—especially in teacher salaries (65 percent) and benefits (17 percent), Luizzi said during the Board of Education’s regular meeting. Citing district-wide enrollment, which is expected to rise next year by about 40, and then steadily increase through 2021, Luizzi said the proposed teacher salaries anticipate additional staffers: two classroom teachers for the seventh grade, one additional K-4 teacher, two supervisory aides at Saxe, one custodian at the middle school and a part-time district-wide social worker. “To be fully understood, we need to understand that [the proposed budget] is comprised of multiple drivers, that some are obligatory and some are discretionary,” Luizzi said during the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “Those drivers are significant numbers.

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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.