Bucking a state-mandated “regional uniform school calendar” that doesn’t mesh with what New Canaanites long have practiced in terms of start and end dates to the school year, or vacations, the Board of Education is postponing the adoption of an academic calendar for 2014-15.
Part of the reason for that is to see what happens with a bill now under review in Hartford that would delay implementation of the “Uniform Regional School Calendar” until 2106-17.
Dr. Mary Kolek, superintendent of schools for New Canaan, and Board of Education Chair Hazel Hobbs, at the April 7, 2014 BOE meeting, held in New Canaan High School.
Originally developed as a cost-saving measure for more sparsely populated regions in Connecticut, the notion of a uniform school calendar became law in a mammoth budget bill that passed last year (it’s 500 pages long, the section that deals with this can be found on page 423.) No member of the New Canaan delegation to the Connecticut General Assembly voted in favor of it.
Part of the law requires “a uniform start date” and “not more than three uniform school vacation periods during each school year, not more than two of which shall be a one week school vacation period and one of which shall be during the summer.”
New Canaanites long have had a week during Christmas, then February and finally, April.
New Canaan High School Principal Dr. Bryan Luizzi at the April 7, 2014 Board of Education meeting, held in New Canaan High School.
Here’s what New Canaan’s academic calendar would look like if the town is left to its own devices for 2015-16 (this is a draft developed by the public schools largely as a basis of comparison), for example, versus this, a sample of what the regional School Calendar could be.
“They have asked us to align with that regional calendar and they give you five discretion days to work with outside of that regional calendar,” New Canaan’s superintendent of schools, Dr. Mary Kolek, said Monday during a Board of Education meeting held at New Canaan High School.
“Again, the motivation was to save dollars,” she continued. “We looked at this as a region with our other districts in the area and we don’t necessarily see any cost-savings with this, at all. We have had discussion about the fact that districts select their calendars for local purposes and there are some local drivers—holidays that we take, vacations that we take, policies that we have about the beginning and end and the number of vacation days, and also we built our professional development days in a particular way to support our professional learning program.”
In the state’s calendar scheme, New Canaan is part of a region that includes much of Fairfield County—it’s part of Cooperative Education Services of “CES,” a Trumbull-based organization formed as per state law that’s designed to “help neighboring school districts communicate and collaborate.”
Board member Penny Rashin said, “There are some parameters that box us in a bit when it comes to the choices we make.” Others agreed and the board voted unanimously to issue a statement saying as much to state officials.
In other business, the school board unanimously approved Tuesday, June 17 as the scheduled day for New Canaan High School graduation.
“We hold it out on the field as you know, and it’s certainly one of the nicest graduations I’ve ever seen,” Dr. Bryan Luizzi, the school’s principal, said during the meeting.