The Westport Board of Education tonight wrestled with what to do if more snow days occur and decided by a 4-3 vote to preserve the April break.

Instead, members decided to make the planned Feb. 28 staff development day a full school day and reduced the number of teaching days on the school calendar to 181 from 182.

If more snow days occur,  the school year will be reduced to 180 days, then extended to Thursday, June 23, then Friday, June 24.

If more snow days are needed beyond that, then Superintendent Elliott Landon will cut into the April vacation beginning with Monday, April 18.

The Staples High School Challenge Team’s first match will be aired on MSG Varsity Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. This match pitted Staples against the Thomaston High School team. The Challenge is a Jeopardy-style quiz show that allows high school students to compete against their peers in a trivia competition. Teams are composed of five members. This year, the Staples team is made up of Petey Menz, Gabe Block, Rachel Myers, Joshua Greenberg, and Matt Silver. Menz is the captain and Silver is the alternate. The faculty advisor is Jim Goodrich All except Silver are seniors. Last year, the Staples team was the Connecticut champion. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo

By James Lomuscio

UPDATE The Westport Board of Education tonight unanimously approved a more than $98.34 million operating budget for the 2011-2012 year—a $2.26 million increase—that will now head to the Board of Finance.

The proposed budget, which represents a 2.36 percent increase over this year, is $415,417 less than the $98.76 million that Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon had originally proposed.

The board trimmed Landon’s initial request by eliminating two staff positions to save $116,000, saving $114,000 on health and medical insurance, and by allocating electricity and technology costs totaling $185,417 to Continuing Education.

The board agreed to the new budget after eight separate line item votes of 7 to 0 on salaries, benefits, supplies, equipment, property and purchase services.

By James Lomuscio

From continuing education to special education, from laptops to team teaching, Westport’s Board of Education Tuesday night discussed potential cuts in next fiscal year’s proposed $98.64 million budget as it steels itself for the Board of Finance’s fiscal ax.
Ellliott Landon: cutting team teaching “step backwards.” Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

The perennial question: What cuts could the school system sustain without adversely affecting quality?

School Board Chairman Donald O’Day said the board would commence line item votes Monday on School Superintendent Elliott Landon’s proposed 2011-2012 budget, a more than $2.56 million increase, or 2.67 percent, over the current budget.

With more than two dozen people present at Tuesday night’s meeting in the Staples High School cafeteria, Landon and Nancy Harris, assistant superintendent of business, fielded myriad questions from O’Day and other board members.

By James Lomuscio

When Westport Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon went before the Board of Finance last month, there was a sense of urgency—three old metal, underground storage tanks needed to be replaced with fortified plastic ones lest they leak causing environmental disaster.
Ellliott Landon: got wrong information. Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

The finance board responded by approving $279,000 to replace them, even recommending that the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) authorize bonding for each 10,000-gallon tank.

There was only one, problem, a big one. Landon and Nancy Harris, assistant superintendent for business, had the wrong information. The tanks at Long Lots Elementary School and Coleytown Middle School were already made of plastic. Coleytown Elementary School is the only one with a metal tank.

Landon says Gary Martin, the school system’s director of facilities, had never informed him nor Harris the tanks were plastic, even though Martin had received an insurance report to that effect back in 2008.

UPDATE Westport Police Captain Sam Arciola credits the discreet placement of video surveillance for the arrest of a Coleytown Elementary School librarian charged with stealing prescription painkillers.
Sarah M. Spencer: 22-year school employee. WN file photo

Sarah M. Spencer, 47, of Trumbull, a 22-year employee of the Board of Education, turned herself in at police headquarters at 8 a.m. Wednesday, he said.

Police said she had been caught twice on video stealing the narcotic painkiller Hydrocodon from the purse of another teacher, a purse which had been locked inside a filing cabinet.

Charged with two counts of sixth-degree larceny, illegally obtaining drugs, possession of narcotics, and the added charge of possession of narcotics within 1,500 feet of a school, Spencer’s bond was set at $10,000. The former two charges are misdemeanors, the latter two are felonies.

There was a DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) graduation ceremony at Westport’s King’s Highway Elementary School today. Principal Susie Da Silva and Westport Police Officer Ned Batlin handed out graduation certificates today to fifth graders for completing the training. Pictured are students who won the course essay contest. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo

Westport Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon, saying past reductions to his requested budgets have “impacted negatively” the education environment, today asked the Board of Education to approve a 2.79 percent budget increase in 2011-12.

In a budget message posted on the school website – and to be formally presented to his board tonight – Landon said “for the past two budget cycles, the Board of Education has received limited appropriations from the Town of Westport, far less than was requested to maintain our educational services at levels designed to maintain the status quo or to scale new heights.”

As a result, he said, the schools have had to eliminate and restructure personnel services as well as cut back on non-personnel categories throughout the budget.

“These major reductions to staff, supplies, equipment and services did not occur without consequences, both subtle and more obvious, all of which have impacted negatively upon the educational environment created for the children attending our schools,” Landon said.