Among those seeking elected office Nov. 5, all five candidates for the Board of Education deserve special thanks and admiration.
Like those running for Board of Selectmen and Town Council, they’ve raised their hands to undergo close scrutiny on behalf of the community, and on a volunteer basis. And Board of Ed members face decisions that we expect to upset as many New Canaanites as they please. Open questions of just how to change school start times and how much taxpayer money to seek for a reconfigured busing system must be addressed in the budget-setting weeks that immediately follow Election Day.
Additionally, working with district administrators to figure out—based on inconclusive community feedback and with an eye on taxpayer spending—how early is too early for elementary schoolchildren forms just one part of the Board’s work and responsibilities.
This year, five candidates—three Republicans and two Democrats—are seeking election to seats currently held by three Republicans and one Democrat.
Democrat Brendan Hayes has earned re-election for his steady stewardship since becoming chairman last year. A strong advocate for what most consider to be New Canaan’s top asset, the public schools, Hayes has chaired a Board that prioritizes students and their education, such as through creation of the worthy alternative high school program, while meeting the necessarily high demands of our municipal funding bodies. Hayes is able for and dedicated to the task. He’s the only Board member to attend every regular meeting so far this calendar year. Putting his background in finance to use, the father of three kids in the system already helped navigate the tightest budget season in a decade and has suggested new ways to answer the nuanced and divisive question of whether to introduce drug-sniffing dogs in the schools.
Republican Julie Mackle Reeves also has earned election to the Board of Ed. Appointed in March when Hazel Hobbs retired, Mackle Reeves is herself a product of New Canaan Public Schools and a former teacher in the system, which her three children have attended. A champion of the district and its students, Mackle Reeves since becoming a Board of Ed member has candidly and accurately described the difficulty of changing start times, and quickly recognized from her seat on the dais the need to weigh the concerns of parents of younger kids. The high value that Mackle Reeves places on education, both for students and the wider community, has an increasingly important place on this Board.
We also endorse Carl Gardiner’s candidacy. A thoughtful and diligent researcher with a background as a financial analyst, the Republican father of three boys who have come up through the schools would serve the Board well in examining the line items of the budget and in applying his background in data science to other areas. Among those seeking election to the school board, he has provided the fullest analysis of changing start times, and as an advocate for autonomy in the schools he has rightly framed a major challenge facing this Board as preserving what is an already excellent system in the face of mandates from Hartford and potentially major changes to come.
The fourth seat on the Board of Ed would go to either Democrat Steve Eno or Republican Bob Naughton. Naughton’s professional background is in technology and education, and he’s a longtime community volunteer whose four children attended New Canaan Public Schools. Eno is a marketing professional who has started his own businesses, and a father of two girls—one a NCHS graduate, the other a Saxe eighth-grader.
We think Eno is the better choice because of his measured approach to addressing the challenges now facing the Board of Ed. On school spending, for example, while Eno said that nothing should be off the table, including a reduction in headcount, he added that anything impacting the classroom should be the last place to look for savings. By contrast, Naughton after deferring to answer a question on school spending at the GOP’s pre-caucus debate, citing a lack of information, during last week’s League of Women Voters candidate forum quickly suggested a staff reduction that would alter student-teacher ratios, or an outright reduction in administrators. Similarly, with respect to school start times, Eno has pointed to Norwalk’s successful efforts to start high school earlier without disrupting younger kids as a model of process, and has called for a commitment to students’ health first, while Naughton has called for more public input without bringing new ideas himself. The low vote-getter among the three Republicans who earned party backing at the GOP caucus in July, Naughton said he “completely” supported starting high school later while also criticizing the process to this point as “elongated” and calling for the Board to “figure out how to make it work” during budget season—an over-simplification that doesn’t recommend him to an elected body faced now with such consequential decisions.