The town fire marshal's office is offering the public some campfire safety tips to prevent fire-related accidents that can cause injuries. Campfire accidents se...
Donald Richard "Don" Cole, 74, of Sandy Hook, died July 2, at his home, surrounded by loving family. He was born in Danbury, March 19, 1944, son of Reuben John ...
Playing in 90-plus degree sweltering heat on July 1, the 19U Bethel Admirals American Legion Baseball team, which comprises Bethel and Newtown players, defeated...
Summer's first heat wave hit a high point in town on Sunday, July 1, when temperatures climbed into the upper 90s - a scenario easily fixed with a trip to the b...
To The Editor:
On Tuesday, June 19, the Newtown Bridge Club hosted their second annual Longest Day event as a fundraiser for the Alzheimer's Association. Throug...
HARTFORD- Governor Dannel P. Malloy announced the morning of July 3 that - in accordance with a presidential proclamation directing flags to be lowered to half-...
Plans are underway for this year's Labor Day Parade.
The 57th annual event will step off at 10 am Monday, September 3. "Serving The Community" is this year's th...
Reed Intermediate School sixth grade students in Petrice DiVanno and Matt Dalton's cluster and in Amanda Eide and John Sicbaldi's cluster gathered on the last d...
A Bethel firm is proposing the construction of an 8,300-square-foot industrial building at 3 Turnberry Lane at Curtis Corporate Park in Sandy Hook.
The firm kno...
It has been almost four years to the day that The Newtown Bee first caught up with Wilco's Pat Sansone, who along with bandmate John Stirratt, f...
Newtown schools have degraded over the 3+ decades I've lived here as the concentrated social experiment curricula driven by the state and small but loud groups. Yet we continue to dig into our pockets while we witness the downward spiral.
Unfortunately as voter turnout continues to decline the chances of it increasing also decline. The LC and BOF already know that the budget will be approved by virtue of the low turnout so why try to make smart decisions? The so-called referendum is essentially just a rubber stamp. They will continue to increase the budget by 2-5% every year because it's low enough to not cause a pushback under the cover of "inflation" and "maintaining the schools." Sending the budget to vote with 9% turnout is meaningless and a waste of resources on April 23rd.
I have seen Mr. Pisani repeatedly assert in the pages of the Bee that Newtown schools are "testing at a failing 64.9%". I'd be curious if he could elaborate on this statistic, as I have been unable to verify it independently. Which test exactly is our school system failing? How do our schools compare to other towns? How does our score compare to historical measures? It's very hard to draw conclusions from a single data point, so here are a few more data points to think about for context: Newtown is consistently ranked among the top 20 school districts in CT by the US News and World Report and Niche, which consider a range of performance metrics in their rankings; on average, Newtown students perform similar to, if not better than, students in neighboring school districts on standardized math and reading tests; the only data point on the CT Department of Education District Report Card where Newtown "fails" -- that is, falls behind the state average -- is access to art instruction. I'm glad the council member has acknowledged in this letter what taxpayers in high-performing (and high-spending) school districts like Darien, New Canaan, and Westport already know: "School funding does impact student achievement." Please keep that in mind when you vote this week!