Speakers from the Board of Education’s public hearing Tuesday night on the superintendent’s proposed 2016-2017 budget gave strong support for the proposal’s increase in teacher training (“professional development”) and for the Early Learning Program.
Proposals for capital projects — like the expansion of the Darien High School Cafeteria, improvements to the gym floor of Ox Ridge School and moving the principal’s office at Hindley School — also received support.
Darien Public Schools spending would go up 3.85 percent, to $94.2 million in the 2016-2017 fiscal year under the budget proposal Superintendent Dan Brenner put forward to the Board of Education
Speakers all seemed to be either associated with the Council of Darien School Parents, an umbrella organization for parent-teacher organizations throughout the school system, or parents in the Early Learning Program.
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See also:
- Superintendent Proposes 3.85% Increase in Darien Education Budget (Jan. 8)
- Mother of Autistic Child Explains How Early Learning Program Changed His Life [VIDEO] (Feb. 2)
- Freshman Soccer Team Captain to Board of Ed: Please, Can We Get Team Shorts That Won’t Fall Down? (Feb. 2)
- On School Spending: Statements at Feb 2 Budget Hearing, Part 1 (Feb. 3)
- On School Spending, PART 2: What Parent Groups Said About Special Ed at Feb 2 Hearing (Feb. 3)
- On School Spending, PART 3: Statements from Budget Hearing (Feb. 3)
- On School Spending, PART 4: Statements from Budget Hearing (Feb. 3)
- On School Spending, PART 5: Statements on the Early Learning Program from Budget Hearing (Feb. 3)
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Most speakers offered careful accounts of school needs that they said called for funding in the budget (or perhaps even more funding, in some cases). Some ELP parents talked about how helpful the program had been for their own children with learning disabilities or other disabilities.
In one case, a soccer team member in the 9th grade got some laughs when he described the ridiculous situation of having team uniforms that were sometimes mismatched and sometimes so big that players had to concentrate on keeping them from falling off while playing games.
Here are some excerpts that stood out from various statements. Darienite.com expects to publish full texts of many of the statements.
Support for the superintendent’s budget proposal
Jill McCammon and Shelly Skoglund, co-chairs of the Council of Darien School Parents:
We’d like to begin by acknowledging the very positive shifts we have seen in the district this year, particularly in the hiring of Dr. Brenner [as schools superintendent] and his very experienced cabinet. Parents are excited and optimistic about what this team of seasoned, proven professionals can bring to our district and grateful for the enthusiasm and joy with which they do it.
From left: Shelly Skoglund and Jill McCammon, co-chairs of the Council of Darien School Parents, speak at the Board of Education\’s public hearing on the proposed 2016-2017 district budget.
We are encouraged by what we have seen so far and anticipate great things as this leadership team transitions from recovery to transformation into a district that prepares children for the challenges of the 21st century.
We are asking our community to support our school’s leadership by supporting this budget. […]
Of the total proposed increase, $1.5M or about 70 percent is contractual salary adjustments. With minimal additional funding, Dr. Brenner has been able to add significant and meaningful program change by redefining how we work. […]
As a parent body, we value excellence, but for years have been settling for mediocrity, Band-Aid solutions and following where other districts have led. We have seen the unsustainable growth in out-of-district placements [for special education students] because we failed to build our own capacity to serve those children.
We continue to make reconfigurations of recently built schools because we built for value vs. building for the future. We strongly believe that while we may have saved money in the short term, the long-term costs of fixing these mistakes will be steep. […]
Dr. Brenner has developed this budget with diligence. we urge all town boards to use that same diligence as they review for approval. we have heard talk of across-the-board cuts of $1M to $2M from factions within the RTM [Representative Town Meeting, which will vote on the overall education budget].
In terms of any across-the-board reductions in this budget, we urge our town representatives to represent their constituents. A majority of taxpayers in Darien are the parents of school children and they value investing their tax dollars in high performing public schools. Indiscriminate cuts will have a detrimental impact on all of our children.”
Priority capital projects
Tara Ochman of Mansfield Avenue, with the Council of Darien School Parents:
“[T]he Council of Darien School Parents continues to advocate for a long-range plan for our school facilities that provides adaptability and flexibility […] As parents we have accepted substandard, outdated facilities for our children for long enough. We fully expect that the district is going to move forward with a plan for the future. […]
The first project is the relocation of the main office at Hindley [School]. Visibility and safety in today’s world is key. Hindley’s main office is located 200 feet from the front entrance. All visitors, including deliveries and parents, must walk past six Kindergarten and first-grade classrooms, as well as the gym and common room, to reach the secretary and the main office. To address this security concern, the main office and nurse’s office will be relocated to the front of the building — and the vacated space will be turned into usable instructional space at a cost of $230,000.
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The second project is the Ox Ridge [School] gym floor. The Ox Ridge gym floor is cracked, warped to the point of unevenness and continues to produce slippery-residue — all creating an unsafe and inequitable environment for Ox Ridge students to access their physical education. […] This project is proposed at a much lower cost than original estimates of $150,000 […]
Finally, sidewalks at Holmes [School]: Existing sidewalks are uneven and in great need of repair. […] A timely sidewalk fix promotes both health and safety for our many student walkers at a cost of $45,000.
Darien High School cafeteria expansion
Peter Orphanos of Raymond Street, and the parent of a ninth grader at Darien High School, speaking on behalf of the Darien High School Parents Association:
Rising enrollment has placed increasing space constraints on Darien High School. […] the auxiliary cafeteria is now a classroom, and every available space is used to its fullest. It should come as no surprise that DHS has a significant overcrowding problem in the cafeteria, and this problem cannot be solved without expansion.
It is common for students to squeeze two or three to a seat; others eat in the hallways, in the “Chill Zone” on the sky bridge next to the auditorium, in coaches offices or outside when feasible. Lower-cost alternatives have been explored and implemented to address this issue, including adding cafe tables and chairs to the vending machine area, and converting from three lunch shifts to four, yet the problem persists.
Expansion is the only solution. Enrollment is projected to rise, and the current situation will only get worse without attention. Oct. 1, 2015 enrollment was 1,358 and is projected to rise to 1,400 by 2018, putting the school at maximum capacity. Only with approval of this project as a part of this budget can we reasonably expect to have the project completed prior to the anticipated 2018 enrollment. This proposed expansion offers our town solid value.
The expansion will allow for 100 to 125 additional seats for each of the four lunch sifts, or approximately 400 seats per day. A cafeteria where more of our students can gather with their peers helps to create an important sense of community. This project is also eligible for a 20-percent reimbursement from the state.
Support for more professional development for ELP teachers
Mary Jo Miller of Relihan Road, who has a son who was in the Early Learning Program:
ELP was a fantastic experience, but he [her son] was very challenging and required a lot of out-of-the-box thinking by his teachers, therapists and administrators. In many ways they were not prepared to offer him the interventions he required, and it was with tremendous effort on everyone’s part to develop the programming he needed.
ELP is a gem of a program, but the special needs children admitted at age 3 often have many challenges that an educator, even with a master’s degree, may not be prepared to teach. I can say this because I hold a master’s in early education myself, and I know that the complexity and diversity of disabilities our teachers are faced with are far beyond what they are sometimes prepared for. […]
Professional development will help prepare them to successfully educate the youngest and most vulnerable students with proper intervention and programming so that, hopefully, these children will require less support as they move forward. […]
For professional development to help teachers of gifted students
Tara Wurm of Mystic Lane, with two children in the Idea program for gifted students:
In Darien we strive to constantly produce the very best educational experiences for all students so they may successfully realize great achievement […] An overlooked and underserved spectrum of our student body are those students that have tested at the very highest levels of learning potential. […]
These students spend the majority of their day unchallenged, unengaged and uninspired because they are perceived as not needing any instruction; the common refrain is “they will be fine”. Why is fine acceptable? Fine is not the excellence we strive for in any other endeavor in Darien. […] Our teachers need to be given the tools and professional development to give our gifted students the education they need.”
Board of Education – Budget Public Hearing 2-2-16 from Darien TV79 on Vimeo.
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