The Board of Education (BOE) heard a presentation on the school district’s Supportive Alternative Individualized Learning (SAIL) program at its March 1 meeting.

Newtown Public Schools Director of Pupil Services Deborah Petersen explained the SAIL program began as a thought in 2017 after finding “quite a few students who were either school avoidant or just were completely overwhelmed by the larger environment but yet didn’t want to go to another school.”

With support from Newtown High School Principal Dr Kimberly Longobucco the program began for the 2017-18 school year, Petersen shared.

“We started the program with approximately five students,” said Petersen, adding that another teacher was added to the program and there are 17 students currently in the program.

SAIL was offered first at NHS and was added to Newtown Middle School last school year.

Curriculum and strategies have been added and changed over the years to support student needs, according to the presentation.

At NHS, Longobucco explained the SAIL program is run out of two classrooms, and those rooms are capable of functioning separately from the general education classes so students can enter and go directly to their classroom. The needs for the students have changed over the years, “and the space works really well” for all those needs, according to Longobucco.

Some students take all of their academic classes in SAIL and others take a mix of SAIL classes and general classes.

Longobucco said there is an effort to keep the class sizes down, since the program at NHS combines high school freshmen to seniors. The program also supports preparing the students to enter back into the mainstream classes at NHS, if possible.

“At any given time you may walk in and see one teacher teaching five different math subjects,” Longobucco shared, “or one teacher delivering four different English curriculums with four different text books. And that is the nature of the program that allows that flexibility.”

Petersen stressed the SAIL program is individualized for each student.

“We really are all about being creative and individualizing for the students so that they really are successful,” said Petersen.

Students have both started in SAIL and entered the general education classes and other students have graduated from the SAIL program, Petersen said.

“And it is the same thing at the middle school,” Petersen observed.

At the end of last school year, the NMS SAIL program had eight students, Petersen said, and “the staff works really hard to make sure we can keep those students in the public schools and provide them all the supports they need socially and emotionally.”

After hearing about staffing for the SAIL program, Board of Education members asked a range of questions to learn more about the program.

Education Reporter Eliza Hallabeck can be reached at eliza@thebee.com.