Elaine McClure Looks Back On 12 Years Of Service

To The Newtown Public Schools

By Eliza Hallabeck

During her 12 years on the Board of Education, Elaine McClure attended board meetings, gave graduation speeches, and handed out an estimated 500 diplomas to Newtown High School students.

“What an occasion. I keep saying we should be the ones who have the cameras, because you are sitting there as they come beaming up to you and past you,” said Ms McClure on Monday, November 30, the day before new school board members attended their first meeting. “Whether you are handing them out or not, they are all so happy and they have all worked so hard to get to where they have gotten to. That will always be a highlight.”

During the high school graduation ceremony school board members take turns handing students their diplomas.

“One of the easiest, or happiest times were graduation,” said Ms McClure, “and the most difficult would be the expulsion hearings.”

Ms McClure’s last Board of Education meeting as chair was Tuesday, November 17.

Ms McClure began her time on the school board in 1997, and started immediately serving as the board’s secretary. In 1999, with the resignation of then Board of Education Chair Amy Dent, Ms McClure began her ten-year time as the board’s chair.

Within that time the school district grew from having roughly 4,200 students to having more than 5,600 students. There were only six schools in the district when Ms McClure began her time on the school board, and, while she was chair, Reed Intermediate School was built to become the seventh school in the district.

“For a lot of those years, when you expand at such a great rate, a lot our budgets were just to keep up with books, and texts, and teachers. Lately, when we have not been expanding at that rate, we can concentrate on filling in more,” said Ms McClure.

With projects still on the horizon, further growth, Ms McClure said, is possible, but not set at a definite time.

“I’ve had the privilege to serve with and work with 21 Board of Ed members, and we have had six members until just recently,” said Ms McClure. “I worked with 26 principals and assistant principals — two of those 26 were interim at the high schools — four superintendents, which one was an interim, and three assistant superintendents. [Former Superintendent of Schools] Evan Pitkoff said I was a constant. The more I look at these numbers, I probably was a constant.”

Ms McClure said while she was chair the expansion to Hawley School took place. She started her path to working as the school board’s chair by being PTA Council President; she was on the Legislative Council for three terms, and at that point the last high school expansion was being looked into. Ms McClure said she and her family moved to Geneva for a few years, before coming back roughly three years later. Her family first moved to Newtown in 1982, left in 1992 and moved back from Geneva in 1995.

She said she served on the board of the Family Counseling Center for a couple years, and had always served on the Republican Town Committee.

“While I was here I had worked on the Space Study Committee, to study what could be done with the problems we were having with too many kids in the elementary schools, and the overcrowding in the middle school,” she said. “We worked as a town to reach a consensus on the best way to solve the problem, and the five-six school came out of it. Then I ended up on the board for the construction of the five-six school, Reed School.”

When she first started on the school board, she had the chance to take a walk-through of the then new edition to the high school. Just a few months before the end of her time as Board of Education chair, in May, Ms McClure was among the group who shoveled dirt and broke group for the current addition to the high school.

“Newtown is a great town. If they see the need, they support these construction projects when the overcrowding reaches a level that merits it,” she said.

“With the high school we worked through so many plans,” said Ms McClure. Before the configurations for the high school expansion could be negotiated, Ms McClure said another consensus as a town had to be made. Options were explored, like building two different high schools, having an academy, and building a new high school and moving the middle school to the high school.

“Each of these times before you do a project, except for the Hawley project, that was pretty simple, you have to work with the town and the boards to try and reach consensus,” said Ms McClure. “And I would like to think that is something I have been able to do well, to try to get a consensus and listen before we take action.”

Looking forward for the school board, Ms McClure is excited with the completion of the Strategic Plan. She also said strong people, like Newtown High School Principal Charles Dumais and Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson, are in place.

“Seeing the parts of a strategic plan start to come to fruition, I think that is great for a school system,” she said. The 21st Century skills discussed during the Strategic Plan, she said, can be seen with Newtown High School exchange teacher Ding Hong now working at the school.

Many, many PTA meetings later since she first began her time on the school board, Ms McClure now says she was lucky for inheriting an excellent school system, and just kept working with the board to improve it.

“I was around for when the Blue Ribbon Award was given to the high school, and when Sandy Hook School got its Vanguard Award,” said Ms McClure. “I have been through two high school accreditations. I think the cool part about Newtown, and I have said it before, is there is a great spirit going on. You go to the schools after hours and you still have people working. You have a superintendent and an assistant superintendent who both work after hours. When the Board of Ed asks for volunteers, they all volunteer. It is just a town that is willing to work hard.”

“I think all of that helps Newtown to stay and keep getting better as an excellent school system,” she said.