Board of Education

Enrollment in New Canaan Public Schools Up 59 Students This Year

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Enrollment in New Canaan Public Schools increased by 59 students this year, and the district now has 4,172 students from kindergarten to twelfth grade, officials said Monday. The figure is 108 students higher than projections made by a Marlborough-Mass.-based educational organization, NCPS Director of Human Resources Darlene Pianka said during the Board of Education’s regular meeting. 

Among grade levels, the three elementary schools saw the highest year-over-year increase, up 21 students from the 2018-19 academic year, and were 72 students higher than projections, Pianka said during a presentation on enrollment, New England School Development Council projections and district staffing levels. “Overall, according to our demographer, we are in a period of stable but slightly decreasing enrollment at the middle and elementary schools, with some small growth at the high school level, in general,” Pianka said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “I think that we can say this is all good information and positive in terms of our enrollment and the fact that we do have a lot of new students, which you are aware of from our budget season last year. And moving forward the complexity of this will be with the NESDEC projections and our best info to estimate what our enrollment will become and to plan for that accordingly.”

Board of Ed Vice Chair Dionna Carlson that, despite the increase of nearly 60 students in the district, the Board of Ed added just 1.85 full-time equivalents to the staff for this academic year.

News

District: 116 More Students Than Projected Enrolled in New Canaan Public Schools

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When the academic year starts next week, New Canaan Public Schools are expecting to see 116 more students K-12 than had been projected, district officials reported Monday. 

The above-projected figure of 4,180 total students reflects higher-than-projected registration across all levels, with the elementary schools 79 students over projections, Saxe Middle School 18 and New Canaan High School 19, according to Darlene Pianka, the district’s director of human resources. The overall figure does not include pre-kindergarten. “Big numbers,” Pianka said during the Board of Education’s regular meeting, held in the Wagner Room at NCHS. The figures show that “there is clearly demand for New Canaan Public Schools,” Board Chairman Brendan Hayes said. “This is great news, I mean seeing 116 students overall greater than what we predicted is pretty amazing and remarkable,” he added.

Bryan Luizzi

District: Kindergarten Enrollments Higher Than Projected

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New Canaan Public Schools officials said Monday that overall enrollment expected to rise in the 2019-20 academic year, with kindergarten seeing a particularly large increase. The district as of now is expecting to get 306 kindergarteners in the fall, up from 233 last October and also up from the 247 that previously had been projected, according to Director of Human Resources Darlene Pianka. 

Kindergarten enrollments haven’t been that high for “at least six years,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said at the Board of Education’s regular meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “If that holds and if trends continue, I would anticipate that that will become the largest grade in our district for the foreseeable future,” he said. Overall, 61 more students are enrolled in New Canaan Public Schools for the upcoming academic year than projected last year when the Board put together its spending plan. First-grade enrollments exceed projections by 16 students, and total high school enrollments by 15, according to the data cited by Pianka.

Amy Murphy Carroll

Did You Hear … ?

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First Selectman Kevin Moynihan during Tuesday’s Board of Selectmen meeting congratulated Caroline Garrity on being named chairman of the Waveny Park Conservancy. Garrity is known to many for her volunteer work with the New Canaan Garden Club. ***

New Canaan Police at 12:05 a.m. Tuesday cited a 21-year-old Waterbury man for possession of less than .5 ounces of marijuana after stopping him at Lakeview and Millport Avenues for driving with a defective headline and marker light. ***

The selectmen on Tuesday voted 3-0 to appoint Dave Hunt to serve on the Board of Assessment Appeals. Bob Avery resigned from the post, Moynihan said. 

***

New Canaan Public Schools announced Thursday that Darlene Pianka, the district’s assistant superintendent of pupil and family services, will succeed the retiring Gary Kass in the role of human resources director.

Government

Schools Superintendent: District Needs Alternative Program ‘With an Identity’ to Keep Students in New Canaan

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When Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi presented a subcommittee of New Canaan’s legislative body with details of a proposal to create an “alternative high school” program for students with specific health challenges in New Canaan last week, a significant portion of the discussion focused on whether the former Outback building behind Town Hall would be a suitable location for the program. Other factors deemed equally—if not more—important were also addressed, including the short- and long-term effects of the program on the educational and emotional wellbeing of New Canaan’s students. Luizzi and Assistant Superintendent of Pupil and Family Services Darlene Pianka outlined their vision for a program that would replace New Canaan High School’s current Afternoon Instruction Program, or ‘AIP,’ which is held in the school’s media center. AIP is currently only available to four to 10 upperclassmen at a time, while Luizzi’s proposal will potentially provide flexible academic instruction for six to 12 students in grades 8-12 based on their educational and therapeutic needs. Over the past year, Luizzi and Pianka have been visiting both public and private alternative programs for teens throughout Fairfield County—some of which have accepted New Canaan students into its programs— and they shared a few of their observations with the subcommittee.