Board of Education (BOE) members discussed the status of the 2026-27 education budget, an update about radon testing at Middle Gate Elementary School, and the district exploring a stop-arm enforcement policy to reduce the illegal passing of buses at their Wednesday, February 18 meeting.

During her report, BOE Chair Alison Plante gave a brief update on the status of the 2026-27 education budget.

The BOE approved the 2026-27 Proposed Operation Budget Plan in a unanimous vote at its previous meeting on February 3.

Plante said their budget is now in the hands of the Board of Finance (BOF), and that Superintendent of Schools Anne Uberti presented the budget to the board at its February 9 meeting.

She continued by saying that the BOF is still in the process of reviewing the budget and had already sent a handful of questions to the BOE.

Plante said the BOE would collect more questions on the budget and planned to return to the BOF at its February 23 meeting to address those questions. However, the meeting was canceled due to the major winter storm that same day.

Plante, Uberti, and Director of Business and Finance Tanja Gouveia will instead attend the BOF meeting on March 5 to answer questions about the education budget.

For her superintendent’s report, Uberti said she had a few items she wanted to update people about.

Uberti said radon mitigation systems were installed at Middle Gate over the long weekend.

The superintendent first gave an update about the radon testing at Middle Gate during the BOE’s February 3 meeting.

All buildings in Newtown Public Schools were tested recently as part of the district’s three year revaluation plan. Tests are conducted in a random sampling of about ten percent of the buildings and are done twice: an initial round and a follow-up round several weeks later.

If the average radon level is over 4 pCi/L (picocuries per liter), it is considered to be at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) action level.

Middle Gate had four rooms that tested over that level. The district notified Middle Gate staff and parents about this on January 28 over e-mail, and Uberti and Middle Gate Principal Jenna Connors held a voluntary meeting to address questions and concerns from the school’s staff on January 29.

As of February 16, Uberti said they were working on connecting the radon mitigation systems to an electrical source and they were expected to be operational by the end of the week.

Once instillation is complete, Uberti said they will retest all of the rooms that have been mitigated. As an added precaution, they will retest every room in one year’s time to ensure that the systems are continuing to function adequately and that there have been “no significate changes to any of the air quality readings from the front half of the school.”

She added that they will start radon testing for Newtown Middle School next week, as it is the one school that has not gone through testing yet.

Once the district has those results, Uberti said they will be shared with the school community and BOE members, along with any follow-up steps that may be required.

Stop-Arm Enforcement Program

Uberti shared that Newtown Public Schools District is exploring the implementation of a school bus stop-arm photo enforcement program.

The violator-funded public safety program is designed to reduce illegal passing of stopped school buses and improve safety for staff, students, and the broader community.

Uberti said the system uses powered smart cameras that are mounted on buses and that capture vehicles that pass a bus while the stop-arm is extended.

Incidents are then reviewed and submitted to local law enforcement for approval before citations are issued. Uberti said revenue from violations is split between the vendor and the town, with the town’s share earmarked for public safety purposes.

The program is authorized under Connecticut State General Statute and has been adopted by multiple towns and cities throughout the state, including Danbury, which launched the program at the start of its 2025-26 school year.

Today, Newtown Public Schools District operates 48 routes with 56 buses. All of these buses would be equipped with this stop-arm technology, according to Uberti.

She has had preliminary discusses with both Chief of Police David Kullgren and First Selectman Bruce Walczak, who support moving this proposal forward.

Uberti and Grant Coordinator Judit DeStefano, who Uberti said “has done a tremendous amount of legwork on the project,” presented this to the Legislative Council on February 25 for their consideration.

“If all goes well, the district could potentially launch this project in August of 2026,” Uberti said on February 18.

Further Stop-Arm Discussion

BOE member Donald Ramsey said he is “so in support” of the stop-arm safety measure for the buses. He suggested, concurrent with implementing that, if they are able, to have a public relations campaign about the issue.

“I really wonder whether drivers nowadays are sensitive to that issue. It’s almost as if they’ve become so confident in their driving they don’t think about things like that and how terribly important it is,” Ramsey said. “I just wanted to plant that seed at this point.”

DeStefano, who attended the meeting, said that is “definitely” a part of the program implementation.

She added that the district is exploring with multiple vendors, but had been speaking with BusPatrol, a bus safety technology company that uses AI-powered cameras to detect and document illegal passing while buses are stopped.

A part of BusPatrol’s program, DeStefano said, is communication and outreach. She said there is also a “warning period” where they do not issue tickets with fines, they just flag it and send a warning.

“So that’s part of what they recommend as you’re warming up your community, because of course, the objective is safety as opposed to massive ticketing,” DeStefano said. “I don’t know yet what all the vendors do in that space, but we would want to go down that path for sure.”

While they “aren’t quite there yet” with selecting a vendor, DeStefano said they have at least the opportunity to do a shared revenue with the vendor at no-cost implementation.

BOE member Christopher Gilson asked how often people illegally pass buses in Newtown, to which Uberti said, “more than we realized.”

She continued by saying the district was not going to do this if it had to pay to outfit its buses, as vendors usually only outfit buses if a district has enough violations.

The district had its drivers track the number of illegal passes in a one-week time period. In total, DeStefano said there were 95 passes.

Of those passes, there was only one instance where the driver was able to capture enough information, such as the make, model, and license plate, since they are preoccupied with a “thousand other tasks” as is, according to DeStefano.

She noted this technology is AI-driven and captures all of that information before people later review and determine if it is a ticketable offense.

“It doesn’t seem that people understand the law, which is why that’s part of the warming up/warning period, where there’s confusion about when drivers are supposed to stop,” Uberti said.

Gilson was shocked at the number of illegal passes in a one-week period, and asked Uberti if they could have the police chief and first selectman make a public statement about the issue.

“These are our kids that we are passing with our cars in our community. We shouldn’t have to put cameras on the sides of buses. Nobody should be passing a school bus,” Gilson said.

Uberti noted she has spoken to Kullgren and Walczak and said that there are a lot of people who travel though Newtown that are not residents who may illegally pass buses.

“We’ll keep you posted because it really is something that the Town has to weigh on and decide,” Uberti said.

Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.