The Westport Woman’s Club today presented college scholarship grants to seven graduating Staples High School seniors. Pictured (l-r) Rebecca Lee (UMass), Nicole Arellano (Univ of Chicago), Case Videler (Univ of Delaware), Dylan Marone (Norwich Univ) and Hunter Duffy (Univ of New Haven.)  Two recipients were absent: Jonathan Maisonet (Univ of New Haven) and Tyler Jatzeck (Univ of New Hampshire.) (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

Citing increased work responsibilities, Westport Board of Education Chair Michael Gordon announced tonight he will resign by the end of June after serving six and a half years.

Chair Michael Gordon announces his resignation tonight as Superintendent of Schools Colleen Palmer listens. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Jarret Liotta for WestportNow.com

“I am at the point now with my day job that I can no longer continue my BOE service at the high intensity level that it requires,” he told tonight’s board meeting at its outset.

A public relations professional, Gordon was elected to the board in 2011 and became chair in 2014. He had served as special assistant on education policy for the Clinton Administration.

The Democrat said he was honored to have headed a board “in a highly engaged community with the schools serving as both the primary driver of move-ins and the heartbeat of activity in town.”

There is a math whiz at Coleytown El.

Alessandra Gavriloiu: tops in state. Contributed photo

Alessandra Gavriloiu, a fifth grader at Westport’s Coleytown Elementary School, ranked first in Connecticut at the 2018 Math Kangaroo, a popular math competition for students in grades 1 through 12.

The competition has been organized since 2003 and takes place every year on the third Thursday in March. The results were just announced.

In 2017, Math Kangaroo had 28,668 participants. Alessandra’s score this year ranks her 15th in the nation and first in Connecticut.

With word of a high school shooting today in Illinois broken up by a school resource officer (SRO), the issue of adding SROs in Westport took on a new urgency, First Selectman Jim Marpe told the Board of Finance tonight.

After a meeting with Schools Superintendent Colleen Palmer and Police Chief Foti Koskinas earlier in the day, Marpe said he will fast track a $320,000 appropriation request to add two SROs to the schools in the fall.

He said he would bring the funding request to the board in June and to the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) in July.

In answer to a question, Marpe said he and school officials and police were working on a long-term plan for SROs and noted that he had heard requests from residents to eventually add up to eight SROs to cover every school.

The Westport Board of Finance tonight approved the additional expenditure of almost $300,000 for continued mold remediation at Coleytown Middle School (CMS).

The approval of $286,605.55 to be taken from the Board of Education Carryover Account is in addition to what Elio Longo, director of school business operations, estimated last August was $600,000 to $680,000 already spent on the issue.

“We believe at this time that we have addressed the identified mold concerns-issues at Coleytown Middle School,” Longo said. “What remains at this time are some water infiltration problems throughout the front entrance.”

He said 28 classrooms at CMS have been remediated along with two major hallways.

The Saugatuck Elementary School (SES) began its 13th annual walk-a-thon today, a week-long event involving about 500 students to raise money for Staples Tuition Grants in celebration of its 75th anniversary. A new scholarship, entitled the Saugatuck Elementary School Community Award, will go to a SES “graduate” who has given back to the shared community in a meaningful way. Today’s featured speaker was Officer Ned Batlin, Staples High School graduate and a Staples Tuition Grant recipient himself. Batlin is pictured with some of his recent D.A.R.E. graduates from SES’s fifth grade. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo