The Board of Education unanimously approved at its October 16 meeting adding a Kids in Crisis TeenTalk pilot program at Newtown High School for this school year.

According to Superintendent of Schools Dr Lorrie Rodrigue, the program is $85,000 for the school year, but the cost would be prorated since it would run for part of the school year.

“Thanks to [Newtown] Parent Connection, we will secure the funding for this year,” said Dr Rodrigue, adding that the district is looking for grants for the following school year, “assuming that we are going to love this program and it is going to be really successful in the school.”

Kids in Crisis Executive Director Shari Shapiro and Managing Director Denise Qualey both attended the meeting to speak about the program. According to the meeting’s discussion, Kids in Crisis would hire a counselor, who would also be chosen by the school district, to work with kids to “spoon feed” the students to specialists and support systems outside of the school.

According to Kids in Crisis, its mission is to, “ensure the well-being of children through vital 24-hour services.” Its TeenTalk program, “places masters’ level mental health counselors in many Fairfield Country middle and high schools. Our specially-trained, compassionate counselors identify and help students navigate difficult personal, family, and school-related issues. TeenTalk Counselors augment school staff by providing confidential individual, group, and family counseling as well as preventative education and seminars on issues of importance to the health and well-being of young people,” according to its website, kidsincrisis.org.

Other Business

Also at the meeting, Newtown Chief of Police James Viadero and First Selectman Dan Rosenthal spoke about the police department’s proposed new police facility at 191 South Main Street. Both Chief Viadero and Mr Rosenthal explained a brief history of the department’s current building on Main Street and spoke about how they came to support the new police facility proposal.

“We work hand in hand with the Board of Education on a daily basis,” said Chief Viadero, explaining the visit to the school board’s meeting was in the spirit of collaboration.

The school board also approved the district’s monthly financial report for September, as presented by Business Director Ron Bienkowski.

“All of the accounts should be on track now. We are not doing any estimates for the end of the year at this point. Our first priority was to get all of the payrolls encumbered so that we could make sure we had all the staffing up to date,” said Mr Bienkowski.

Since the end of the last fiscal year, Mr Bienkowski said “Twenty-seven additional special education youngsters” have moved to the district. The special education tuition account is expected to be about $217,000 beyond what is budgeted, but a more updated amount will be known later in the school year, according to Mr Bienkowski.

Dr Rodrigue also spoke at the meeting about the importance the district will be stressing on its strategic plan while working on the 2019-29 budget.

“This year, I’ve asked our district administrative team to really more clearly flag their budget requests with the goals and strategies from our strategic plan in order to provide a clear rationale for the request,” Dr Rodrigue said.

The school district’s approved strategic plan for 2016 through 2021 is available to read on the district’s website, newtown.k12.ct.us.

Dr Rodrigue shared at the meeting the school district’s enrollment as of October 1 is 4,321 students.

“We are still decreasing. We are about 106 students less than the previous year, but again, if you look at the overall picture, we really are... going up in terms of elementary student enrollment. So overall, a much better picture than we thought just two years ago,” said Dr Rodrigue.

The school board also approved the resignation of Assistant Superintendent of Schools Jean Evans Davila at the meeting.