School Board Subcommittees

Take On A List Of Issues

By Eliza Hallabeck

Around a table in Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson’s office, members of the Board of Education’s Policy Revision Subcommittee have been meeting to update all policies and guidelines associated with the board.

Across the district, members of the board’s Facilities Subcommittee, comprising school board member Bill Hart and board Secretary Debbie Leidlein, have completed tours of each school in the Newtown Public Schools district, and Mr Hart has created a website to monitor all facilities in the district.

“It’s a really good way to focus our efforts,” said school board Chair Lillian Bittman.

School board members have become designated point people in the subcommittees on those subjects, and, Ms Bittman said recently, that was the intention from the start of the subcommittees.

Mr Hart introduced www.learninginnewtown.org at the March 31 meeting of the Facilities Subcommittee , and explained the website further at the April 6 full Board of Education meeting.

Included on the website are photos from the Facilities Subcommittee’s tours of the schools.

“In an effort to promote open communication and more effective dialogue about our schools, I created this website,” Mr Hart wrote on www.learninginnewtown.org. “The objective for the site is for it to be used as a repository of facts and data about Newtown’s schools and not as a place for political opinions. Hopefully, by making this information available, we as a community can have more productive discussions about our schools and make more informed decisions about their future.”

The site was set up separately from the school’s website, and will be maintained by volunteers, according to the site.

At the March 31 meeting, Dr Robinson said the site will create a convenient place for residents to learn more information about the schools.

“It helps us to be more open,” said Mr Hart, adding, it also allows everyone the chance to see documentation and further information on the facilities and operations in Newtown. The website is still under construction, but contains documents, photos, and more of the facilities.

The Facilities Subcommittee is also working to build inventory of the facilities to develop a stewardship plan for the district, according to the site. 

“This plan is intended to be ongoing and provide the basis for [capital improvement plan] projects and other initiatives,” Mr Hart wrote on the site. “Hopefully, this Facilities Plan will tie together all the various capital and expense projects in the district and result in better use of our resources and maintenance of our facilities.”

At the start of March, the Policy Subcommittee was starting the process of looking through all guidelines, policies, and bylaws associated with the school board. The subcommittee’s purpose is to review policies and to ensure they are in line with each other, current legislation and what the school board dictates, according to BOE subcommittee assignments sheet created in January.

After reading through the current Board of Education policies, Ms Bittman, school board Vice Chair Kathy Fetchick, Dr Robinson and Assistant Superintendent of Schools Linda Gejda each shared their notes.

Speaking to one specific policy, Ms Bittman said, “It’s just so broad, but that is what a policy is going to be, so I struggled with this one.”

The Policy Subcommittee will present its findings to the school board when ready, and, once everything is passed by the school board, the process will begin to rewrite those policies at the state level.

Other subcommittees of the school board include finance, Mr Hart and Ms Bittman; capital improvement plan, Ms Fetchick and Richard Gaines; communications, Ms Bittman and Chris Lagana; legislative outreach, Mr Gaines and Ms Leidlein; curriculum, Ms Leidlein and Mr Hart; and contract negotiations, David Nanavaty, Mr Hart, Ms Bittman, and Mr Lagana.