With the first full week for Newtown Public Schools concluded, Superintendent Chris Melillo spent a few minutes with The Newtown Bee reflecting on education, transportation, and more.

“Overall it was a great start,” Melillo said on September 6. “I thought it was very positive.”

While the superintendent noted some “growing pains for transportation,” he said that is normal for the first week of school, with new drivers needing time to get “dialed in.”

The district has enough school bus drivers, Melillo shared, but there is an issue with the “depth of drivers” or how many drivers are available if too many people call out at once.

“It’s really a question of how many replacement drivers we have,” said Melillo, adding that Newtown is in a better place than other districts in the state concerning the number of drivers.

“At least we were able to start with a full complement of drivers,” said Melillo.

Melillo also traveled to school for the first day of the 2022-23 school year on a bus, after surprising a local bus stop with a visit that morning. After arriving at Sandy Hook Elementary School that morning he said, “It was great. The kids were great.”

As far as education goes, Melillo said he thinks district administrators feel “it was a very smooth opening.”

Noting a “feeling of normalcy,” Melillo said it is a different feeling from the last two-and-a-half years of the pandemic. And that feeling is making a difference for morale levels in the district. Melillo also shared ancillary programs — such as PTA programs — that may not have taken place during the pandemic are back this year.

“Those are all events that students look forward to and were curtailed for obvious reasons,” said Melillo, adding that schools provide a full slate of activities for children.

Melillo visited about half the schools in the district in the first week and he planned to visit the remaining schools in the second week. In the first week, he noted smiles and people excited for the school year.

He also attended a Project Adventure lesson at Newtown Middle School. The lesson was overseen by NMS Project Adventure teacher Ron Chivinski and Project Adventure paraprofessional Marc Michaud, who oversees safety.

According to Chivinski, the lesson the superintendent observed was held for every homeroom at NMS. Clusters took turns visiting the school’s second gymnasium for the lesson. Chivinski said the lesson included a giant word board game with each homeroom challenged to work together as a team to solve a board.

“Students were having discourse, working together to solve problems, and getting to know each other,” Melillo shared.

With this school year being Melillo’s first year serving as superintendent, he said he is looking forward to meeting more members of the community in the months ahead.

Other things Melillo is looking forward to include getting to know the school district more and working on the district’s strategic plan, specifically around the area of addressing learning loss.

With the ongoing Hawley Elementary School HVAC project relocating Hawley lower grades to Sandy Hook Elementary School and upper grades to Reed Intermediate School, Melillo said one of his upcoming plans is to hold stakeholder sessions to start working on plans to bring Hawley students home for next school year.

There will be a focus on not having those plans impact teaching and learning, he shared.

And the first week went “pretty smooth” at both Sandy Hook and Reed, according to Melillo.

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