The Bedford Middle School performances of “Oklahoma!” scheduled for tonight, Saturday, and Sunday, have been postponed due to bad weather.

They will be rescheduled for some time in January, according to school officials.

Westport has been cited as among Connecticut school districts violating a key provision of No Child Left Behind, the new federal education law.

The state Department of Education Wednesday listed Westport as one of 99 Connecticut districts that failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress, a requirement of No Child Left Behind.

Westport was cited officially as among 27 districts not having the required 95 percent of every category of students taking the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) and/or Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) during 2001-2002.

As reported by WestportNow Nov. 24, Westport educators were nervous that Staples High School would be cited by the state because not enough students participated in testing.

The latest report did not cite specific schools but was based on performance of all schools in the district.

However, Supt. of Schools Elliott Landon confirmed that not enough students taking tests at Staples had contributed to the Westport deficiency listing.

Only 44 of 48 (Staples) special education students participated in the CAPT mathematics test and 43 of 48 participated in the CAPT reading test,Ӕ he told WestportNow.

As a result, this subgroup of students did not achieve the 95 percent participation rate target for Adequate Yearly Progress as required by the law, he said.

Inklings, the Staples newspaper, had reported in its October issue that Staples had already been put on notice that it had failed the latest round of student achievement testing because not enough students had taken the test.

But Landon told WestportNow last week the Inklings report was premature as he was still awaiting the official report.

Landon also gave additional details about the Staples performance.

On the mathematics component, there was a 92 percent participation rate recorded for special education students and a 90 percent participation rate in the reading component,Ӕ he said.

Nonetheless, for the special education students who did participate, 92 percent scored at or above the proficiency level in mathematics and 100 percent achieved proficiency in reading.Ӕ

Landon said of the overall Staples population, 95 percent of our students scored at or above the proficient level in mathematics (up from 88 percent last year) and 96 percent of our students achieved at or above the proficient level in reading (up form 94 percent last year).Ӕ

For the full Staples report, click here.

In August, Bedford Middle School ended up on a state Education Department list of schools in need of improvement because one student did not take a test, according to Landon.

The state will officially release a list next week of high schools failing to make adequate yearly progress based on 2003 CAPT scores.

State education officials said the latest list of failing districts, including Westport, is based on the aggregate performance of subgroups at all of the district’s schools, including schools that did not make the list this summer.

Subgroups include 40 or more students and include poor and minority students, students with disabilities, and English as second language learners.

No Child Left Behind, which separates students’ test scores based on demographic groups, requires that at least 95 percent of students in each group take standardized tests, to ensure scores are not skewed.

Westport was not the only affluent district in the state to fall short of No Child Left Behind’s goals. Greenwich, Fairfield, Cheshire, and Guilford also made the state Department of Education’s list for not testing enough students in each subgroup.

Both Norwalk and Stamford were identified as failing to make adequate yearly progress, based on their performance on math and reading tests.

In all, 54 percent of Connecticut’s 185 school districts and charter schools failed to make adequate yearly progress.

This was the first time the state Department of Education released a comprehensive list of schools failing to meet the standards of No Child Left Behind.

The $74 million Staples High School renovation and expansion project is on schedule and on budget, the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) was told Tuesday night.

Dan Kail, chair of the Staples Subcommittee of the School Building Committee, briefed RTM members at the end of the legislative bodys annual organization meeting.

He said he would have a better idea of budgeted costs following the opening of another round of construction bids.

The first phase of the project is expected to be completed in 2005.

After protracted negotiations, Westports school teachers have reached an agreement with the Board of Education for a new three-year contract calling for an annual wage increase of 2.5 percent.

The teachersҒ contract, which goes into effect July 1, is the largest among all town employees. Personnel costs account for about $56 million of the towns almost $71 million education operating budget.

The agreement was reached during an arbitration hearing between school officials and the Westport Education Association, representing the teachers, according to educators.

Members of Westports Board of Education peppered a staff member of the stateҒs Freedom of Information (FOI) Commission tonight with questions about conducting board business while complying with the FOI law.
Thomas A. Hennick, public education officer of the commission, addressed the board for more than an hour at its meeting in the Staples High School library and then answered questions from its members and the public.
Many of the questions from board members concerned the use of e-mail in conducting board business.  Mary Parmelee wanted to know whether it was okay to give and share opinions about agenda topics via e-mail in advance of a meeting.

FOI Commission staffer Thomas Hennick addresses the Board of Education tonight. WestportNow.com photo

In general, use common sense and be practical,Ӕ Hennick advised. The idea here is not not to use e-mail. You just donӒt want to get into the deliberative area.
He said a simple message stating an opinion would probably be okay, but added that if the e-mails turned into a general discussion, that would be more like a meeting and that would not be okay.
Several board members said that they already have in place a system whereby all e-mails sent to and from board members are retained on a computer and the public may go to the office of Supt. of Schools Elliott Landon and request access.
Hennick said Westport seemed more advanced than some other communities in its use of and questioning about e-mail and the FOI law.
ԓSome of what you said tonight is groundbreaking, he told the meeting. ԓI havent heard it from many corners of the state.Ҕ
The FOI official also talked at length about what is properly discussed in executive sessions and when it is okay for the board to meet for a non-public meeting.
This was the second meeting of the board since the Nov. 4 election. Two new board members, Democrat Mark Mathias and Republican Lewis Brey, had successfully run for the board on platforms that included advocating better communication between the board and the public.
Westport’s Board of Education has been the subject of two FOI complaints in recent years—the latest in August when The Hour of Norwalk filed a complaint over delayed access to e-mail correspondence.
The newspaper withdrew the complaint three weeks later when the e-mails were supplied and school officials said they had established a system for the public to review e-mails subject to public inspection.
Hennick introduced his talk by saying he had an especially good feel for issues involving boards of education because not only was he an FOI staffer and a former journalist, but he also serves as a member of the Region 13 Board of Education.
Region 13 serves the Middlesex County towns of Durham and Middlefield in south central Connecticut.
Update (12/2/03): In its report on the meeting in Tuesday’s edition, The Hour played up Hennick’s positive comments about the board’s retention of e-mails policy, headlining its story “FOI spokesman applauds school board.” The newspaper made no mention of its August FOI complaint.
The Hour also reported: “Representative Town Meeting Moderator Gordon Joseloff,  District 8, said the RTM retains its e-mails in paper form in the Town Clerk’s Office, but it intends to place them on the Internet to give further access to the public.
“‘Inviting someone into an office to review e-mails is a half-step,’ he said. ‘You need to make a full step toward public access. You can make people think you are not open.’”
Editor’s Note: Joseloff is editor and publisher of WestportNow.

The Associated Press has told the world about Staples whiz Rob Sobelman.

In a Westport-datelined story, it said: Rob Sobleman thought researching the technique of creating carbon nanotubes would be boring. He ended up making a major scientific discovery.

ӔIt began when the Staples High School senior landed a plum summer internship working with a researcher credited with helping discover carbon nanotubes – microscopic structures whose unique electrical properties are advancing the field of miniaturization.

Working in a lab of graduate and doctorate students, the 17-year-old was asked to study the 20-year-old process of making nanotubes. He was disappointed.

ԔI felt like I was put back in first grade and told to learn how to read again,Ғ Rob said. I had already studied the process, I wanted to work on the application.ђ

But Rob capitalized on the perceived step backward. In a four-week stint at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he discovered how to improve that process dramatically – a finding that recently won him second place in the regional finals of the prestigious Siemens Westinghouse Competition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Nearly 1,000 students from New England submitted reports for the competition, which, with two Intel-sponsored contests, attracts the toughest competition. Rob came in second to a Massachusetts student who discovered a cancer treatment that affects only bad cells, unlike chemotherapy.

“‘I don’t feel bad losing to the guy who cured cancer,’ he said.”

Todays New York Times, in a front-page story, takes a look at an effort by WestportҒs Staples High School to cut down on student cheating, something it says exists all over the country.

Excerpt: A Crystal Rock water bottle is Exhibit A in a campaign to reduce cheating here at Staples High School, a bastion of affluence, academic achievement and unrelenting pressure to succeed.

ӓThe label of the bottle had been peeled off, the history of atomic theory printed on the back and the label restored in preparation for a chemistry test. The test taker hoped for a handy crib sheet indeed, it was even magnified by the water.

דBut it also turned out to be easily visible to the teacher, who was more alert than he was at this time last year and gave the student a failing grade.

Cheating was not often discussed here until last spring, when two incidents forced Westport to confront a problem that exists all over the country and is growing worse every year.Ӕ

Theres a new report coming from ConnecticutҒs Department of Education on compliance with the No Child Left Behind law and Westport educators are nervous that Staples High School might be cited as in need of improvement.

Inklings, the Staples newspaper, reported in its latest issue that Staples had already been put on notice that it had failed the latest round of student achievement testing because not enough students had taken the test.

But Schools Supt. Elliott Landon told WestportNow the Inklings report was premature. We are still awaiting the official report,Ӕ he said.

Sandra Urist, chair of the Board of Education, said she had been told that whether Staples was in compliance depended on whether enough students who were required to take achievement tests actually did so.

It is my understanding that it could go one way or another,Ӕ she said.

In August, Bedford Middle School ended up on a state Education Department list of schools in need of improvement because one student did not take a test, according to Landon.

A spokesperson for the Education Department told WestportNow scores were to have been forwarded to schools and made public by Nov. 15.

They ran into problems and itӒs been delayed for a couple of weeks, she said.

ԓNo Child Left Behind affects Staples because state goals have not been achieved, according to the Inklings report.

ԓMany students at Staples have failed to meet the goals of the Connecticut standardized test known as the Connecticut Academic Performance Test. The actual test scores were not the problem.

The problem was that not enough students took the test, because some of them chose to protest against standardized testing.Ӕ