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The Westport Board of Education tonight received the results of a survey of special education parents, which shows the majority of parents are overall satisfied with the program.

The survey results—which were initially only provided to the school board—will be available on the school Web site starting Tuesday. They are part of a report that is more than 160 pages.

More than 1,000 parents were sent the survey, but 352 of them returned it, which is about 35 percent.

Of those responding 81 percent agreed on some level that they are satisfied with the programs offered by the school system, and 76 percent the programs meet the needs of their children.

A broken fire sprinkler pipe caused some flooding at Westport’s Green’s Farms Elementary School Thursday night, fire officials said.

Firefighters responding to an automatic alarm at the school at 17 Morningside Drive South at 10:55 p.m. opened the front doors and found water gushing down the front steps, said Assistant Chief Robert Kepchar.

“Upon investigation, it was quickly determined that a large diameter sprinkler pipe had broken, dumping large amounts of water in the main hallway and down to the lower level,” he said.

The firefighters immediately shut down the sprinkler system and used large squeegees to push the water out of the building, Kepchar said.

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Westport school officials will see the first results of a survey of special education parents during the Board of Education meeting Monday night.

Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon said representatives from Glen Martin Associates, the firm that completed the survey, will be on hand to make a presentation.

The board meets at 8 p.m. at Bedford Middle School.

Landon said the results will not be available to anyone—including the board and himself—before the meeting.

Westporter Carol Walsh will take over July 1 as principal of Greenwich’s Central Middle School.

Walsh, currently principal at Scofield Magnet Middle School in Stamford, has a keen knowledge of middle school education, adolescent development and best practices, said Superintendent of Schools Larry Leverett in announcing her appointment Thursday.

She’s been a French teacher in Georgia, and French and Spanish teacher in Darien, and also taught in Massachusetts.

In 2002, she was selected as principal to open a new high school in Cincinnati, the Withrow International High School. In 2003, she assumed her current position at Scofield.

Walsh is also an adjunct professor at Sacred Heart University’s Graduate School of Education in Fairfield.

Sunday’s New York Times Connecticut section features a story about four students from Westport’s Staples High School who recently won $20,000 in a math competition to figure out how to fix Social Security.

Under the headline, “That Was Easy: Social Security Problems Solved,” the newspaper recounts how the four worked 14 hours on a Saturday in March to win the Moody’s Mega Math Challenge, sponsored by the Moody’s Foundation and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, a math advocacy group.

The Times coverage included a picture of the four – Vikas Murali, 17; Miles Lubin, 16; Antrew Tschirhart, 18, and Elizabeth Marshman, 17 – as well as faculty adviser Bill Walsh and Frank Corbo, head of the math department.

The students presented their findings earlier this month to the Board of Education. (See WestportNow April 11, 2006)

The Westport Special Education Parent Teachers Association (SEPTA) will host a forum Thursday, April 27 on challenges facing children with special needs as they move between various levels of public education.

The program, “Transitions – The Public School Years – From Preschool To High School,”  will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Saugatuck Elementary School and feature Westport public school administrators who oversee the transition of children with special needs.

Among the topics to be discussed will be preparing preschoolers for kindergarten, helping children adjust to the structure of elementary school, encouraging middle schoolers to develop self advocacy skills, and recommending ways parents can keep in touch with high school teachers as their children enter and progress through ninth grade.

The presentation will be held in the school library and is free and open to the public. For additional information or to make a reservation, contact Janis Fox, SEPTA Programming chair at (203)222-8485 or e-mail Westport SEPTA at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Elizabeth Marshman steps to the microphone during a presentation she and Vikas Murali, Andrew Tschirhart and Miles Lubin gave to the Board of Education Monday night. The four Staples High School students won the Moody’s Mega Math Challenge for their solution to keeping Social Security solvent for the next 75 years. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Jennifer Connic for WestportNow.com
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Four students at Westport’s Staples High School Monday night showed off the project that won them the Moody’s Mega Math Challenge and the $20,000 top prize.

The students, who appeared at a Board of Education meeting, included seniors Elizabeth Marshman, Vikas Murali, Andrew Tschirhart and junior Miles Lubin.

They were tops among 129 teams and more than 500 students competing from the New York metropolitan area.

The students had to use their math skills to craft a proposal to make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years. The finals of the competition were held last week in Manhattan. (See WestportNow April 7, 2006)

Joyce Losen, school communications specialist, accepts the CABE award for the district’s Web site tonight from Archie Elam, a CABE representative. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Jennifer Connic for WestportNow.com
The Westport Board of Education received a Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE) award tonight for its Web site.

Archie Elam, CABE representative, said the Westport schools’ Web site exceeds all the parameters for the award.

“It’s a well-deserved effort,” he told the board during tonight’s meeting.

Joyce Losen, the district’s communications specialist who has overseen the site, said she enlisted a number of Staples High School students who understood HTML—the Internet coding language—when the site was first created.

Now she realizes the site is a little old-fashion looking and needs a redesign, she said.

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The Westport Board of Education took action tonight so state officials can release the final $2 million grant money remaining on the Bedford Middle School construction project.

Assistant Superintendent Nancy Harris said there were a number of problems that needed to be fixed before the school was officially complete, but they are now resolved.

She can now submit the project as completed to state officials so the final funding can be released, she said.

Included in the issues were regrouting the kitchen and locker room floors, which were done before the school was opened, she said.

A team of students from Westport’s Staples High School has won a math competition sponsored by Moody’s rating service, taking home the $20,000 top prize.

The Staples team included seniors Elizabeth Marshman, Vikas Murali, Andrew Tschirhart and junior Miles Lubin.

“The most exciting part was the intensity,” said Frank Corbo, Staples Math Department chair. “You would have thought it was the Super Bowl.”

The first-ever Moody’s Mega Math Challenge is an applied mathematics competition that required students to complete an open-ended, realistic, challenging, modeling problem focused on real-world issues.