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‘Tight Timelines’ Set to Kick-Start $2 Million Saxe Auditorium Renovation

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With an eye on securing construction funds for fiscal year 2016, the group that’s overseeing the renovation of the Saxe Middle School auditorium is working against “tight timelines” that will see draft plans completed by the end of January, officials say. Members of the Saxe Auditorium Building Committee are meeting weekly now as well as conducting site visits in New Canaan, Darien and Westport so that by the next budget cycle they can come before the town with more details and tap the $2 million earmarked for the work starting next summer, New Canaan Public Schools Interim Director of Finance and Operations Nancy Harris said at the Sept. 8 Board of Education meeting. “We have to have a comprehensive preliminary budget, which means there has to be a draft of a design, so that kicks us into high gear,” Harris said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “At our opening meeting, we really set some very tight timelines,” she said.

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Group Forms to Oversee Saxe Auditorium Renovation

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New Canaan this week took a big step toward the widely anticipated renovation of Saxe Middle School’s aging auditorium, with the creation of a volunteer panel to oversee the project. The Saxe Auditorium Building Committee includes elected and district officials as well as private citizens. The town approved $175,000 for project designs in the current fiscal year, with $2 million earmarked for the actual work in fiscal year 2016, budget documents show. Part of the original 1957 building, the Saxe auditorium received a “poor” rating in an August 2013 facilities survey. Interim Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi described the auditorium as both an instructional and performance space “and it hasn’t been updated, maintained or renovated in an awfully long time.”

“We’ve got a situation where the seats are broken and the space itself is no longer serving the needs of the school or the community,” Luizzi told NewCanaanite.com.

Bunny Potts

Board of Ed Recognizes Two New Canaan High School Seniors, 13 Retiring Educators

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The Board of Education on Monday honored two graduating New Canaan High School seniors and 13 educators who are retiring after this academic year. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Mary Kolek (who is herself retiring and earned kind words from Board Chair Hazel Hobbs during the meeting, held in the high school’s Wagner Room), spoke for a few minutes about both seniors who received Student Leadership Awards from the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education or “CABE,” as well as the teachers and administrators soon to retire. Here’s a snippet from Kolek on each honoree. Students

(CABE each year recognizes two students for distinguished leadership in school activities and daily lives, “And I have the pleasure of presenting those awards tonight,” Kolek said.)

New Canaan High School senior Kit Mallozzi (also a NCHS Students Advocates Award winner, headed to Syracuse University in the fall): “One has only to talk to Kit for a few minutes and it’s clear, she’s one of the world’s great optimists. Her nomination submission portrays Kit as someone who embraces life, a friend to all and a ray of sunshine.

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Town on Soggy, Unplayable Sports Fields: ‘We’re Doing Our Best’

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With a lingering, frosty winter that quickly turned into a very wet spring, New Canaan’s playing fields are unusually soggy and about three weeks behind where they usually are, causing some frustration among youth sports parents and coaches, officials say. Parks Department crews are working diligently to get soccer, baseball and other fields into shape, despite a late clay delivery and hold-ups getting sand that New Canaan had ordered back in February/March, according to First Selectman Rob Mallozzi. “The weather has been tough on my yard, tough on your yard, tough on our fields,” Mallozzi said. “We’re doing our best. We have people getting frustrated with conditions on our fields and our department guys are frustrated, too.

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VIDEO: Saxe 5th-Graders on Living in Colonial New Canaan

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Grade 5 Colonial Day at Saxe saw re-enactors from the Fifth Connecticut Regiment visit the middle school Friday to bring to life 18th Century weaponry, surgical duties, spy tactics and other parts of the American Revolutionary War era. If this video is any evidence, the fun, interactive exercise achieved at least part of its purpose by making the kids think seriously about what it would be like to live back then. NewCanaanite.com asked the students what they’d miss most in their daily lives if they lived in Colonial New Canaan instead of now (article continues below video):
Saxe Middle School Grade 5 Colonial Day
 

Christian White, a fifth-grade history teacher who helped organize the regiment’s visit, said the annual visit coincides with curriculum. “I think they have a lot of fun seeing some different things,” he said. “I think just being able to see what they’ve been learning in the history books really looks like and at the end of the day, seeing the musket demo where regiment will march in formation and then fire the muskets, is terrific.”

Mary Hanna, K-8 social studies coordinator for New Canaan, said Colonial Day gives the fifth-graders “a chance to see everything up close and personal and hear the stories as if they went back in time.”

“They’ve been spending the year really talking about the colonial period, so it fits in perfectly,” he said.