On Thursday, August 4, New Fairfield’s Board of Education (BOE) met for their first meeting of the 2022-2023 academic year. Board Chair Mr . Dominic Cipollone welcomed new Superintendent Dr. Kenneth Craw to his first official Board of Education meeting. The BOE heard updates on the elementary campus, noting that the timing for the opening will be extremely tight. They also heard an up date from Pupil Personnel Services (PPS) that the district’s preschool, the Early Learning Center (ELC), has far more children enrolled for fall than originally expected.

New Director of Business and Operations Ms. Carrie DuPuy gave an update on the school construction progress at both campuses. She stressed that the elementary school is on schedule to open on Tuesday, September 6 but noted that the timing will be squeaky tight. She explained that the administrators still need to create a last-minute punch list and they expect that teachers will also have some requests. Furnitu re is being delivered in the coming week and DePuy says that the expectation is to get a final clearance on building use on August 29. The teachers are coming in on August 30. On Friday, September 2, the district is tentatively planning to offer a meet and greet for elementary families. DePuy briefly walked the BOE through construction photos and highlighted areas of interest in each school.

Administrators gave a brief update on enrollment, pointing out that a little more than two dozen additional students have moved into the district. Fifth grade currently has the most impacted class sizes at 23.9 students per class and the district is monitoring that closely. “It’s still in a manageable place at this point,” Craw said. 

Regarding the ELC—a special education program serving students who receive services through an Individualized Education Plan (IEP)—last year PPS was anticipating sixty-eight students, which was what they budgeted for, but that number has now grown to eighty-four. Having gone down from four to three classrooms, split into six sessions (morning and afternoon) the class sizes are expected to jump. It was noted that Birth to Three referrals have risen steeply but that some students who are being referred will not join the program until mid-year or later. PPS Director Ms. Katherine Matz said, “we are counting for sixteen seats in each session. Prior to that we’ve always gone to fourteen but right now, just looking at the numbers, we mapped out sixteen seats—that is well within the Office of Early Childhood guidelines of a maximum of eighteen students.”

As an integrated program, the ELC invites peer “role models” to participate in the program, but Matz indicated that the official designation of “integrated” may need to be dropped, as the percentages skew with additional enrollees. “We have always run an integrated program, which means no more than 50% of our students have IEPs,” she said, “These projections are very, very close to crossing over to be more than 50% Special Education…We are just right on the cusp of either deciding we won’t be an integrated program or we may have to go over sixteen seats. We may have to go to seventeen or we may have to decide to open another section.” The ELC will still use the same curriculum that it has used—a play-based model with cooperative learn ing, social reciprocity, and movement built into the daily instruction. Board members asked Matz to put together a document that explains the ramifications of becoming a non-integrated program and to relay costs for re-opening a fourth classroom.

Cipollone said of Craw’s first meeting and as a tone setter for the year, “I look forward to a collaborative atmosphere where we are all moving the ball in the same direction and that would be a focused effort on ensuring student safety and a learning environment that promotes student well-being in areas including the physical, the emotional, and spiritual, and the academic success of all of our students.”

Craw explained that administrators are “getting together as a team” at a recent leadership retreat and in frequent meetings. He noted that recent demo lessons by Ms. Alyce Misuraca

provided enhanced instruction from an engagement perspective. At the next BOE meeting, Craw plans to give the board an update on his entry plan to engage faculty, parents, and students.

In public comment, Ms. Aline Fogle suggested that the school hold a community tag sale for the fur niture that is not moving up from Consolidated. She also supports plans to allow students to tour the elementary campus before school starts on Tuesday, September 6.

The next regular Board of Education meeting is scheduled for Thursday, August 18, 7:00 p.m.

By Sarah Opdahl