The next meeting of the Genealogy Club of Newtown is scheduled for Wednesday, March 11, in the meeting room of C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street.
The meeting w...
At The Newtown Bee, we are working on articles every week for our readers’ education and enjoyment, and subscribers get the first — and sometimes exclusive — lo...
The high school basketball postseason continues tonight, Monday, March 2. Newtown High School's girls' team will host Cheshire in the Class LL state tournament'...
Newtown High School's girls' basketball team defeated visiting Cheshire 48-26 in the first round of the Class LL state tournament on March 2.
The seconds-seeded...
Newtown’s general fund will be at least a quarter million dollars richer now that Governor Ned Lamont’s administration is preparing a municipal aid bond package...
At the request of the developer, the Planning & Zoning Commission (P&Z) has rescheduled a planned public hearing on a proposal to construct a 14,000-square-foot...
Vincenza “Dolly” Koehler, 93, of Carlisle and Shippensburg, Penn., passed away suddenly and peacefully on Friday, February 28, 2020, at The Episcopal Home, Ship...
Rebecca “Becca” Katherine DiDomizio was born on August 24, 1999, in Bridgeport, Conn. She passed away unexpectedly on March 1, 2020, in Newtown, Conn, at the ag...
Dorothy M. Reilly, age 95, of Ansonia, a loving mother and grandmother and wife of the late Raymond A. Reilly, entered into eternal rest on March 2, 2020, at Cr...
The host Immaculate High boys' basketball team overcame a solid effort from visiting Newtown to win their South-West Conference tournament semifinals contest 55...
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!