Dionna Carlson

District: Proposed New School Start Times Schedule Wouldn’t Require Kids To Wait in the Dark for the Bus

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Though New Canaan’s youngest students would start school first—instead of last, as they do now—under a new schedule that district officials are considering, those kids wouldn’t need to be picked up by buses until after it’s light outside, officials said last week. Because buses could head out in the morning from each of the three geographically distributed elementary schools—that is, closer to students’ homes than they do now, in picking up New Canaan High School kids—a 7:45 a.m. start time at East, South and West would mean the very first student wouldn’t need to be picked up until 7:06 a.m., according to new estimates from the district. Though such a system would require additional buses and brings with it several practical challenges (see below), it also would allow NCHS to start at a sufficiently late morning time with respect to adolescent health, officials said Friday during a special Board of Education meeting. Under the proposed system, seventh- and eighth-graders at Saxe Middle School would start with NCHS at 8:30 a.m., while the fifth and sixth grades at Saxe would start together at 9:15 a.m. 

The schedule would see elementary schools run through 2:15 p.m., while the high school and seventh and eighth grades finished at 3 p.m. and fifth and sixth grades at 3:45 p.m., meaning all levels would have a 6.5-hour school day, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said at the meaning, held in a conference room at the district’s administrative offices. The potential new start time schedule—what Luizzi called a “prototype,” developed much work from Roy Walder, transportation coordinator for New Canaan Public Schools—follows multiple surveys and workshops involving the schools and wider community, and is built around an anchor assumption that grades seven-and-up start at 8:30 a.m., as recommended by pediatricians.

Jay Egan

Athletic Director: ‘Home of the Rams’ To Be Painted on NCHS, Facing Dunning Stadium

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New Canaan High School’s premier athletic facility stands to get a boost of hometown pride. According to NCHS Athletic Director Jay Egan, workers this weekend will begin the project of painting a New Canaan Rams-specific message across the top of the south end of the high school, facing Dunning Stadium. The words ‘Home of the Rams’ will be painted in white on top of red paint that’s already in place, Egan told members of the Board of Education at their regular meeting, held Monday night in the Wagner Room at NCHS. “We had an exceptional year athletically,” he said during a presentation that touched on many topics. “It was quite a year for us even by New Canaan standards.”

The idea to decorate a visible structure with a positive message about New Canaan had come up in 2016 when then-Utilities Commissioner Dan Welch suggested painting “New Canaan, Home of the Rams” on the Waveny water towers overlooking the sports fields.

Anthony Bloss

‘The Kid in Me Hasn’t Died’: Bloss Gets the Call Up to Head Coach After 14 Years with NC Baseball

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A love of baseball has flowed through Anthony Bloss since he was five years old. That’s when Bloss made his way up a tunnel of the old Yankee Stadium and caught his first whiff of the freshly cut, bright green grass which surrounded the diamond. It made his young boy’s eyes sparkle, Bloss recalled on a recent morning. When Bloss arrived as a math teacher at New Canaan High School in 2005, one of the first things he did was seek out then-longtime head varsity baseball coach Mark Rearick to express his interest in helping the baseball program in whatever way he could. And over the better part of the next 14 years, Bloss did just that.

CIAC

New Canaan, Greenwich Officials Push To Move State Title Football Game Saturday Closer to Home

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[Note: Update here.]

Saying it’s the best thing for local students and their families, officials from New Canaan and Greenwich are asking the organization that oversees high school sports in Connecticut to consider moving a state championship football game this weekend closer to home. The Rams and Cardinals will square off Saturday for a widely anticipated Class LL championship after advancing in the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference tournament. 

As it stands, the game is likely to be played at Shelton High School, though NCHS Athletic Director Jay Egan said officials from both lower Fairfield County high schools are asking whether it could be moved to Stamford’s Boyle Stadium, which is available. “Greenwich and New Canaan are advocating for a venue that would be most advantageous for our students and our fans to see the game, so they will not have to travel so far and all the reasons that make sense,” Egan told NewCanaanite.com. “Both schools are interested in what is best for the school and communities.”

Referring to the high schools’ advocating for a nearby venue, he added, “We would be remiss if we did not do that.”

CIAC officials could not be reached for comment. Asked what reasons CIAC officials have for not playing a New Canaan-Greenwich football game at a venue that’s halfway between them, Egan told NewCanaanite.com that the organization has said championship game sites are set before the season, that they’re chosen carefully with all potential teams in mind and that making a last-minute change could set a bad precedent. 

NCHS head coach Lou Marinelli’s Rams have played against a Cardinals team coached by his son, John, four times since the latter took the helm at Greenwich High School in 2015.

News

‘A Concern That I Have’: New Canaan High School Sees Drop in Teacher-Coaches

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Just 37 percent of the total athletics coaching positions at New Canaan High School are filled by Board of Education staff—a figure that has dropped off in recent years though it would benefit the district to see it higher, officials say. Out of 106 coaching positions, 39 are filled by district staff, a number that represents 29 unique coaches, as some of them coach multiple sports, according to NCHS Athletic Director Jay Egan. A closer look at the numbers shows that just 21 of those unique coaches are teachers, Egan told Board of Ed members at their most recent meeting. “So that means almost 20 percent of the coaches are teachers,” Egan said at the June 18 meeting, held in the Wagner Room at NCHS. “Now, 15 years ago that was a much different model.