The lost week of school due to Storm Sandy will not eliminate nor shorten either the February or April recesses, but will reconfigure professional development days and possibly extend the school year by three days if inclement weather causes more days off, according to a recommendation Westport School Superintendent Elliott Landon plans to present to the school board tonight.
Elliott Landon: “Unanimous consensus” to retain recesses. Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

In his letter, Landon said he has been meeting with parents, teachers and administrators to decide how best to adjust the 2012-13 school calendar due to Sandy.

“There appears to be a unanimous consensus on the part of all groups that both the February and April recesses be retained,” he stated.

To help make up that time, Landon said the Westport Education Association and the Westport Intermediate Administrators agreed to hold one of the two scheduled professional development days on a Saturday.

By Ana Radelat

www.ctmirror.org

Washington—More than 3,100 Connecticut students will have a longer school day starting in the 2013-14 school year, part of an experiment in five states to boost scholastic achievement.

“We know our teachers and students need more time in the classroom,” said Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

Malloy and Connecticut Commissioner of Education Stefan Pryor were in Washington today to accept the first of several annual $300,000 grants from the Ford Foundation and the National Center on Time and Learning. The money will be used to plan, and later fund, a school year that will grow by at least 300 hours in seven Connecticut schools. They are located in East Hartford, Meriden and New London.

O’Connell Elementary in East Hartford and Casmir Pulaski Elementary and John Barry Elementary in Meriden will be involved in the pilot program, as well as New London’s Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School, Jennings Elementary, Nathan Hale Elementary and Winthrop Elementary.

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By Jacqueline Rabe Thomas

www.ctmirror.org

Connecticut has run out of time to comply with a court order to reduce the inequities caused by the segregation of Hartford’s largely black and Hispanic school population.

The state Department of Education today reported that 37 percent of Hartford students are now attending integrated schools—4 percent shy of the number the state agreed to reach in a settlement five years ago.

The shortfall means the state will have to negotiate a new settlement with the plaintiffs.

“We are extremely disappointed. They have had years to reach this requirement. It was a reasonable and achievable goal,” said Martha Stone, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the 1996 Sheff v. O’Neill case that led to the Connecticut Supreme Court’s ordering the state to desegregate Hartford schools.

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By James Lomuscio

With five school days missed last week due to Storm Sandy, Westport’s Board of Education Monday night will grapple with making up lost time, making sure the academic year does not extend past June 21, 2013.

The school board will also, as is custom at every meeting following Election Day, hold its election of officers, an election that will be far from pro forma, Acting Chairman Jim Marpe, who took, over when Chairman Donald O’Day, a Democrat, resigned in August, has announced he will step down. Marpe, a Republican, said he will be leaving to run for First Selectman.

Regarding the school calendar, Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon noted that the hurricane used up two more than the three allotted snow days that the board had banked.

“As a result, we need to restore two instructional days for students and three for weather-related emergencies,” Landon said in a letter to the board.

By James Lomuscio

Parent Jarret Liotta addresses the Board of Education Monday night.  (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Photo from Board of Education video

The school bus driver used profanity, talked about his sex life and told students aboard Bus 16 heading to Westport’s Coleytown Middle School (CMS) Thursday morning, Oct. 18, that they should be having sex, too, an upset father said today.

“This is an atrocity,“said Jarret Liotta, whose daughter was on the bus.

Liotta was one of several parents critical of how the school administration handled the matter who spoke before the Board of Education Monday night, the opening day of National School Bus Safety Week.

He singled out Sandra Evangelista, the school system’s transportation coordinator, for the “school system’s failure to respond,” resulting in the same bus driver arriving to pick up the children at the end of the school day. He also criticized Evangelista for failing to answer two of his previous calls and emails on unrelated matters.

Staples High School math instructors Lenny Klein and Sarah White have been picked as “Gold Star Teachers” by Working in Support of Education (WISE), a New York based nonprofit that promotes financial literacy, Westport school officials announced today.

Staples High School math instructors Lenny Klein and Sarah White. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo

Klein and White, who teach personal financial management at Staples, are scheduled to be honored at WISE’s Money Power Conference in New York City Nov. 6.

According to Lisa Marriott, schools spokeswoman, the Gold Star accolade is awarded to teachers to achieve a 90 percent passing rate on the WISE Financial Literacy Certification .

“In fact, 100 percent of Mr. Klein’s and Ms. White’s students passed the on-line test last spring semester and earned their financial literacy certification,” said Marriott.

Staples High School Principal John Dodig announced today that 31 Staples seniors have been named as Commended Students in the 2013 National Merit Scholarship Program.

A letter of commendation from the school and National Merit Scholarship Corporation will be presented to the students who participate and excel in nearly every activity Staples High School offers, Dodig said.

The students are: Megumi Asada, Jacob Baron, Olivia Bicks, Spencer Carr, Lucas Carstens, Alexandra Ciotoli, Anne Cooperstone, Kevin Coughlin, John Dobrich, Jared Eisenberg, Jessica Ellison, Christian Fincher, Reed Geisler, Katherine Hickson, Danielle Honigstein, Garrett Jordan, Claudia Kann, Jeffrey Krieger, Eric Lombardo, Michaela MacDonald, Alec Maki, Jacob Meisel, Alexandra O’Kane, Audrey Reedy, Molly Rubidge, Bryan Schiavone, Mark Schwabacher, Madeline Seidman, Jeremy Sherman, Anita Vohra and Steven Weinstein.

Approximately 34,000 Commended Students throughout the nation are being recognized for their exceptional academic promise, Dodig said. He said they placed among the top five percent of more than 1.5 million students who entered the 2013 competition by taking the 2011 Preliminary SAT.