The Board of Education during its most recent meeting voted to update the district’s goals and objectives, including new language around one of its major and most widely discussed initiatives in recent years.
During its Aug. 21 meeting, the Board voted in favor of a number of updated objectives including “begin implementation of short- and long-range plans for integration of the renovated Dome into the student experience K-12.”
Deputy Superintendent Dr. Jill Correnty called the renovated planetarium, known as “the Dome,” “one of the most exciting” areas of the regularly updated goals and objectives document.
“Obviously the Dome is moving along,” Correnty said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “It’s kind of exciting to walk in and see the renovations taking place and we’re very excited. We will obviously be going through some training in August on how to use the equipment within the Dome and then it’s really diving in and trying to figure out all the integration and how we will be utilizing it across the district K-12. I think our goal remains that we’ll be hoping to open it some time in the fall with the hope to run the courses in January like the new astronomy class and other things that we’re going to develop.”
Board Chair Katrina Parkhill, Vice Chair Phil Hogan, Secretary Erica Schwedel and members Hugo Alves, Penny Rashin, Brendan Hayes and Julie Toal voted in favor of the updated goals and objectives. Board member Bob Naughton, who attended via Zoom, voted against, according to the BOE’s meeting minutes.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi first publicly discussed plans to refurbish the planetarium in early-2019. One year later, fundraising was well underway via a new public-private partnership (here’s a podcast with Luizzi from last fall about the project).
Asked about the Dome on Wednesday, Luizzi told NewCanaanite.com that the renovation “provides a transformational opportunity for our students and community, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible commitment and hard work of our volunteers, led by Sara Schubert, and the overwhelming generosity of our community.”
“In one short year, this public-private partnership provided the resources to bring our 1970s era, ‘dots on a dome’ planetarium, into the 21st century as an immersive learning theater,” he continued. “In a world where personal technology can draw people apart, our Dome Theater is designed to bring them together by providing collective immersive learning experiences, guided by teachers and experts, and leading to collaborative exploration and discovery. As projector technology has progressed through the years, so has the sophistication of the ‘shows,’ and more are being created every day. While the opportunities for virtual space exploration in the Dome are unlimited, so are the opportunities to take trips back in time, forward into the future, to deepen and expand learning across all disciplines, and to experience all of it together.”
The potential for learning is “truly awe-inspiring,” he added.
“We are beginning our planning this year with our elementary students by providing assured experiences, aligned with the curriculum, for students in select grades,” Luizzi said. “Our plan includes expanding these assured experiences across all grades in the years ahead, and we’re thrilled to get started.”
Though the district is looking forward to selecting the software for the Dome, “it’s “not even the most exciting opportunity in the years ahead,” according to Luizzi.
“Given the sophistication of the system and our work in Innovation through the years, along with sharing professional shows, our students will also be able to create and share their own shows on the Dome,” he said. “As you’ve heard me say before, good schools teach students to understand the work of others, great schools empower them to use that understanding to create something uniquely their own. In the not too distant future, our Dome will be projecting student created projects as yet another way our New Canaan Public Schools empower our students to discover and explore.”
Another area of the district’s objectives that has been updated involved adding the “Portrait of a Graduate” initiative. Under this rewritten objective—“Ensure alignment across school/district systems and mission, vision, values and beliefs in order to continually enhance the learning experience for all students”—the Board of Ed added “Develop and articulate a Portrait of the Graduate.”
The updated goals and objectives also include action items related to the healthier school start times that took effect last academic year, such as how the change relates to Saxe Middle School. In the last couple of years, Correnty said, the district has been “looking to figure out how to maximize staff and make sure we’re meeting the needs for students at Saxe.”
“This year is a little bit more challenging with a 75-minute gap between the Upper and Lower divisions,” she said. The district is working with a third-party company that’s come in to take a look at what’s happening at Saxe “to see if there’s a better way to program for the students,” Correnty said.