The Westport Board of Education today appointed Vikas Muktavaram to replace Republican Paul Block, who resigned last month (See WestportNow Jan. 5, 2016), and Town Clerk Patricia Strauss immediately administered the oath of office in a Town Hall lobby ceremony. Muktavaram, 43, a Westport resident since 2009, was chief risk officer for an asset management company. He is married to Lavanya Bellumkonda, an assistant professor and cardiologist at the Yale School of Medicine. The couple has two children, Lyah, 11, and Anya, 8. Pictured are (front row, l-r) Strauss, Eileen Flug, moderator, Representative Town Meeting; Muktavaram, BOE Chair Michael Gordon, and First Selectman Jim Marpe, (back row, l-r) BOE members Karen Kleine, Jeannie Smith, Mark Mathias and Brett Aronow. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

Fourth and fifth grade students at Westport’s Kings Highway Elementary School (KHS) performed their annual school play Tuesday, “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.” The school is the only elementary school in Westport that produces an annual play production and has been doing it for more than 25 years. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo

By James Lomuscio

Members of Westport’s Representative Town Meeting (RTM) got hot under the collar tonight during a debate over funds for installation of air conditioning at Coleytown Elementary School (CES).

RTM Member Meliissa Kane questions Board of Education Chairman Michael Gordon at tonight’s meeting.  (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Photo from Westport Town Television

After slightly more than two hours of contentious debate and a public flogging of the Board of Education, members approved by a 30 to 2 with 2 abstentions vote a $216,000 school board request to install air conditioning at the school this spring.

The request, reduced from the Board of Finance approved $290,000 due to lower bids, was for a long sought HVAC air conditioning system in the CES gymnatorium and cafeteria. Opened in 1953, CES is the only Westport elementary school among five without such air conditioning.

Tonight parents and others told stories of children becoming overheated, exhausted, passing out and getting injured.

By James Lomuscio

A projected surplus this year allowed the Westport Board of Education tonight to save its school bus monitor program, third grade paraprofessionals, and middle school team leaders next year without breaking the bank.

Board of Education members (l-r) Karen Klein, Bret Aronow, and Mark Mathias listen at tonight’s meeting.  (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

By a unanimous vote, the board approved a $113.45 million 2016-17 operating budget, a 2.05 percent increase over the current year and up only slightly from the 2.03 percent increase that Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon had proposed.

“I think we put together a very progressive budget academically,” said Michael Gordon, school board chairman. ” ...and yet, it is an exceptionally lean budget.”

The school board unanimously voted to restore the bus monitor program, which Landon had proposed cutting to save $125,000.

Commissioner Dianna R. Wentzell (at Westport forum Nov. 15, 2015): “will empower more students.” (CLICK TO ENLARGE) WestportNow.com photo

Westport will receive a $126,390 technology grant as part of a state effort to help Connecticut school districts put more computers in classrooms and increase Internet bandwidth in schools across Connecticut.

State Department of Education Commissioner Dianna R. Wentzell announced the grant following State Bond Commission approval of $10.9 million to be distributed to 171 school districts across the state.

The investment is part of the state’s broad efforts to strengthen computer and technology resources as schools continue to implement Connecticut Core Standards and administer computer-adaptive tests aligned to these standards, an announcement said.

“If we want our students to thrive in school and have the skills and knowledge to succeed in the hightech world they will enter after high school and college, we have to teach them technology skills,”  Wentzell said.

By James Lomuscio

It happened a generation ago, but the 1991 death of an 8-year-old Westport girl run over by her school bus still resonated at tonight’s Board of Education meeting.

School board member Jeannie Smith and Michael Gordon along with Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon listen to audience comments tonight.  (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

At issue was a proposed cut in Superintendent of Schools Elliott Landon’s 2016-17 $113.4 million school budget that would do away with Westport’s school bus monitor program except for special education students.

Landon, seeking to save $125,000 in the budget, said the monitors were no longer needed because, among other things, technology has made school buses safer.

Another reason, he said, is that a number of the monitors have retired and it is hard to find replacements. This left only one-quarter of the elementary school buses with monitors, which he called inequitable.

By James Lomuscio

Click here for top 50 list

As expected, Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon in 2015 again topped the school system’s list of wage earners with $282,226 in compensation.

The top 20 Westport 2015 school wage earners, as provided by the school business office.  (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Landon, who after 17 years at the helm is retiring at the end of the school year, remains Connecticut’s highest paid schools superintendent.

On July 1 he will be replaced by Weston Schools Superintendent Colleen Palmer, whose salary agreement with the Board of Education stands at $285,000.

Landon’s salary for 2015 is slightly lower than in previous years when it stood around $287,000. Elio Longo, director of school business operations who released the wage earner list today, said that Landon had deferred some of his 2015 compensation to the end of this year.

UPDATE Westport Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon today declined to comment on an open letter to him from the parents of 14-year-old Staples High School freshman Christopher Lanni that asked the administrator to investigate whether their son’s sudden death was related to cyberbullying.

Elliott Landon: at Jan. 5 BOE meeting where Lanni death discussed. Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

“We have been in constant communication with the Police Department since Dec. 23 and have no further comment,” Landon said in a statement.

In their letter (see WestportNow Jan. 13, 2015), the parents asked to bring the police into the investigation if necessary. Social media posts by Westport parents during the holiday break speculated that Christopher had taken his own life as a result of persistent cyberbullying.

Westport police said today they have already investigated the death and turned up no evidence of cyberbullying.