Graduation is still four months away for seniors at Westport’s Staples High School, but they already know who will be class valedictorian and salutatorian.

Inklings, the school newspaper, reported that Madeline Seidman was informed last week that she will be valedictorian. She will be the first female to get the honor since Mariel Goddu in 2007.

“I was so happy I started crying a little bit,” Seidman said, according to the newspaper. “Then I asked if I could still sing with the choir at graduation after I make my speech.”

Robert DeLuca was told he earned the No. 2 ranking, crowning him the 2013 salutatorian. DeLuca will give a speech the night before graduation, at the class’s Baccalaureate service.

Scenes from today’s robotics competition at Westport’s Greens Farms Academy. Helen Klisser During for WestportNow.com

By Michael Gambina

www.ctmirror.org

School architects gave the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission a blunt lesson today in the limits of physical security measures, warning that the best architecture can do against an attacker like Adam Lanza would be to slow him until law enforcement can arrive.

“We can mitigate risk, we can delay risk, we can control risk, but there really is nothing we can do to guarantee a risk-free environment,” said James LaPosta Jr., principal and chief architectural officer with JCJ Architecture in Hartford.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy created the commission to recommend public policy changes, including looking at school building standards, in response to Lanza’s assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he shattered a locked door with rifle fire, then killed 20 children and six educators.

Putting school violence in context, LaPosta emphasized that incidents like the one in Newtown, although horrific, are a rarity and not the only threat faced in school environments.

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The Board of Education’s top 10 wage earners for 2012. See full list here. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Data: Board of Education

The top 50 Westport Board of Education wage earners for 2012 once again were led by Superintendent Elliott Landon and Assistant Superintendent for Business Nancy Harris.

Landon and Harris, employees since 1999, made $287,899 and $205,344 respectively.

Lisabeth Comm, director of secondary education, earned $182,087 while Cynthia Gilchrist, director of elementary education, brought home $178,105.

School principals followed: Coleytown Middle School Principal Kris Szabo made $159,493; Staples High School Principal John Dodig, $158,459, and Susie DaSilva, principal of Kings Highway School, $156,238.

By James Lomuscio

Word that Nancy Harris, the Westport school system’s assistant superintendent of business for the past 13 years, will retire effective June 30, has brought regrets and tributes from colleagues.

Nancy Harris: “She will be missed.” Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

The announcement also prompted a posting of the job opening Sunday in The New York Times as well as on the town’s website and employment websites.

“It is with regret that I inform that Nancy Harris, Assistant Superintendent for Business, has elected to retire effective June 30, 2013,” Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon emailed school staff and the Board of Education last week.

“Nancy has served the Westport Public Schools with incredible dedication and commitment for the past 13 years.”

Nancy Harris: calling it quits in June. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

UPDATE Nancy J. Harris, assistant superintendent for business in the Westport school system, will retire in June and a search has begun for her successor.

Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon informed staff members last week of her decision, and today a notice seeking a successor was published in The New York Times and posted on Internet job sites. Application deadline is March 11.

Harris has been the business manager under Landon since they both joined the school system in 1999.

In 2011, the Westport Board of Education decided to extend Landon’s contract until July 1, 2014. (See WestportNow June 20, 2011)

Staples High School teacher Mike Aitkenhead, who is also steward of Wakeman Town Farm, appeared on the “CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley” tonight in an “On the Road” feature about postal clerk Mike Herr on the Pennsylvania State University campus. Herr, known as a man with a perpetually positive attitude, was cited by Aitkenhead, a former Penn State graduate student, as an influential figure in his life. The CBS report included a clip of Aitkenhead’s acceptance speech as 2009 Westport Teacher of the Year (see WestportNow Aug. 27, 2009) in which he said: “The one person I’m always going to remember and probably taught me the most about life was ‘Mike the Mailman.’” Aitkenhead told CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman: “It honestly was his example who kind of taught me it’s not what you do in life, but it’s how you do it.” (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Photo from CBS News video

By James Lomuscio

After weeks of reviewing School Superintendent Ellliott Landon’s proposed school budget for next year, Westport’s Board of Education tonight unanimously approved a $104.18 million budget for 2013-14. It will now head to the Board of Finance and the Representative Town Meeting (RTM).

The board approved budget is more than $1 million less that what Landon had proposed and represents a 3.95 percent increase over this year’s operating budget.

“I’m hopeful the Board of Finance and the RTM will see the diligence we put into this,” Landon told the board.

Turning to the audience in the Staples High School cafeteria, as well as viewers at home, he added, “This Board of Education cut more than $1 million from the original budget I proposed.”