The Board of Education heard an update on the upcoming Hawley Elementary School HVAC project at its June 7 meeting.

With the project’s scope impacting the building during next school year, plans have been made to relocate Hawley’s younger students to Sandy Hook Elementary School and older students to Reed Intermediate School for the 2022-23 school year.

“We are ready to welcome Hawley kindergarten and first grade to Sandy Hook,” said Sandy Hook Elementary School Lead Teacher Kelly MacLaren. MacLaren shared that at Sandy Hook School there will be a total of 28 classrooms in use for both elementary schools, seven for Hawley and 21 for Sandy Hook School.

“We’re moving along,” said MacLaren.

At both Reed and Hawley teachers have been invited to see the spaces where their classrooms will be.

At Reed, according to Assistant Principal Jenna Connors, the Hawley school students and staff will be located in the building’s Blue House hallway.

“They will almost be a school within a school,” said Connors. All of Hawley’s specials classes, like art, will be held in separate spaces.

“Hawley feels very welcome in both spaces, and it’s all very appropriate,” said Hawley Lead Teacher Carla Tischio.

Hawley is currently “abuzz” with packing, Tischio shared.

“We’re just grateful ... for how welcome we are,” said Tischio about both Sandy Hook and Reed.

After saying the school board members are looking forward to more updates throughout the 2022-23 school year, BOE Chair Deborra Zukowski said, “It sounds like it is going to be a successful start to a very successful year.”

New Food Service Provider

The school board also voted to have Chartwells be the district’s new contracted food service provider starting for the 2022-23 school year. Whitsons Culinary Group is the district’s current provider.

According to Newtown Public Schools Director of Business & Finance Tanja Vadas, a selection committee oversaw screening the two bids that were offered for the contract, one from Whitsons Culinary Group and one from Chartwells, which was the district’s food service provider prior to Whitsons Culinary Group.

Vadas said the selection committee scored the Chartwells contract higher based on a number of areas. She also said that while the school board voted on the selection, the contract has to go to the State of Connecticut before final approval.

After school board members asked a range of questions, including whether current school district personnel will keep their food service positions, Vadas said it is a typical practice for the school district to approach employees with an offer to stay.

The school board also heard a presentation on a sixth to eighth grade math pilot resource. According to Director of Teaching and Learning Frank Purcaro, the goal of the pilot was to address inconsistent presentation of math material, inconsistent strategies, inconsistent terminologies that students were exposed to, and outdated resources.

After piloting two programs, Purcaro shared how the HTM Into Math program was selected for content, technical supports, and ranked positive and negative experiences from educators.

Purcaro shared that the data collected for the HTM Into Math pilot was extremely positive.

After discussion, the school board voted unanimously to approve HTM Into Math to be the new sixth to eighth grade math resource.

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