Monthly Archives: January 2014

A.B.C Committee Region One January 15 Reply

by • POSTS, COMMENTS, VIDEO AND AUDIO

A.B.C Committee Region One January 15

 

Region 1 board considers public comment

BY RUTH EPSTEIN
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

FALLS VILLAGE — The Region 1 All Board Chairmen Committee discussed public comment, and how to handle it, at its meeting last week. North Canaan representative Dolores Perotti brought up the subject, noting her board came up with a policy after incidents at meetings where there was a lot of talking back and forth between board members and the audience. She said some meetings got out of control.
Falls Village representative Dominick Caiati said the board should be inviting to the public. He said the board has to use its time efficiently and if concerns are raised they can’t really do anything about it during meetings. Cornwall’s Rebecca Hurlburt said there has to be a distinction between questions and comments.
“You don’t have to answer questions. There’s not supposed to be an exchange.”
Claude Rolo of Salisbury said those with concerns can always put those concerns in writing and the committee can take its direction from what it hears.
Superintendent Patricia Chamberlain said hearings — rather than regular board meetings — are held to allow for discussion.
Andrea L. Downs of Falls Village, chairman of the Region 1 board, said she thinks questions can be answered. “To me if taxpayers have questions they deserve answers.”
She said at those board meetings she has told audience members she would try to answer their questions at the next meeting so they don’t think they are being ignored. “We’ll see how it works.” She said as long as control is maintained and people are respectful she doesn’t see that practice as a bad thing. Sharon’s Electra Tortorella asked members to send examples of practices used to her.

From this mornings Republican-American….. Reply

by • POSTS, COMMENTS, VIDEO AND AUDIO

BY LYNN MELLIS WORTHINGTON

REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

KENT — The Kent Board of Education is girding for a tough budget year, knowing it faces a large increase next year for insurance costs and an increase in teacher salaries from a recently ne­gotiated contract.

The health care insurance is obtained through a region­al collaborative that involves all seven schools in Region 1 and the six towns. Region 1 Business Manager Samuel Herrick has indicated the schools may have to plan for at least a 20 percent in­crease, but the final numbers haven’t been calculated yet.

The education board’s budget subcommittee met Tuesday to begin developing the 2014-15 budget for Kent Center School.

Board members zeroed in on several areas and asked for additional information about cafeteria operations and costs, common core cur­riculum impacts, parapro­fessional salaries and bene­fits compared to the region’s other schools, and reducing supply costs by reducing pa­per usage.

“Unless it is an absolute necessity, I would not expect there to be an increase in anything,” said board Chair­man Paul Cortese.

No budget numbers had been filled into the draft document the committee worked with. A second workshop will be held Jan. 28 at 5:30 to firm up the numbers before a Feb. 6 meeting of the entire board.

As students prepare for the first round of testing under the state’s new Common Core standards, parents and educators are questioning the tests and why states seem to be in a rush to implement them. Reply

by • POSTS, COMMENTS, VIDEO AND AUDIO

Critics say reforms go too quickly
Parents, teachers question pace of program’s testing
BY ANDREW LARSON REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

WOLCOTT — As students prepare for the first round of testing under the state’s new Common Core standards, parents and educators are questioning the tests and why states seem to be in a rush to implement them. On Thursday night, Wolcott school system’s Director of Curriculum Frank Purcaro presented an overview of Common Core, including the accompanying Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium tests, to parents and members of the public. Students will take the tests in grades 3 through 8 and in the 11th grade. This year, they’re considered pilot tests. In 2014-15, the tests, which are taken on a computer, will become “adaptive,” meaning the questions become progressively more difficult until they reach a student’s ability level. Common Core is intRA_Mastheadended to help standardize the skills students are expected to learn at certain grade levels, allowing achievement to be measured uniformly across the nation.

School board urging state help with budget-North Canaan Board of Education January 9 Reply

by • POSTS, COMMENTS, VIDEO AND AUDIO

BY RUTH EPSTEIN

REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

CANAAN — With another large assessment looming for the town in the proposed 2014-15 Region 1 Board of Education budget, local school board members ex­pressed the need to let the state know that help is need­ed to curb the rising costs.
During its meeting last week, the North Canaan Board of Education heard from Ned Gow, its represen­tative to the Region 1 board, that the preliminary figures show an increase of $460,000 for the town’s share. This comes on top of a $300,000 rise in the cur­rent plan. The proposed to­tal for Canaan is $4,641,430 out of a total $15,592,880, which reflects a 7.98 per­cent increase. Gow said the town’s percentage is rising from 30 to 32.3 percent of the total, but also the overall budget is higher.

When he pointed out that the town’s share of the state Educational Cost Sharing (ECS) grant is more than other towns, member Karen Riccardelli noted while that’s true, their revenues from the grant have remained stagnant as their percentage of the costs has increased over time. She said she is sure the high school is as important to the other five towns in the region as it is to Canaan and all have an interest in mak­ing sure it’s affordable. She suggested as a group they go out to Hartford to ex­press their concerns.
She suggested that before the costs become too much of a burden to Canaan the town should request the state either increase its share of the ECS grant or allow it to be more flexible and do what it thinks necessary to keep the school affordable.
Gow said he’d be looking at where cuts can be made without hurting the students.
But Riccardelli, noting that if the current proposal goes through, the town would have a $760,000 increase over two years