Charlotte L. Clark
Charlotte L. Clark, 85, wife of the late Joseph Clark of Nunnawauk Meadows, Newtown, died June 30 in Danbury Hospital.
Mrs Clark was born in ...
Girl Scouts To Fight Invasive Plants
The Girl Scout Council of Southwestern Connecticut is taking the lead in helping to educate people about the threat invasiv...
Newtown Rotary Changes Leadership
And Wins High District Honor
More than 100 people attended Newtown Rotary’s Annual Leadership and Awards banquet ...
NHS Student Participating
In Leadership Conference
By Larissa Lytwyn
Newtown High School sophomore Jenna Zigman was one of 1,500 outstanding high school studen...
Trinity Day School Graduation
Amid a crowd of flashing cameras, a swarm of whirring video cameras, and a flood of joyful tears from family and friends, the 2003...
Paddlers Club Meeting, July 16
The Housatonic Valley Paddlers Club will hold its next meeting on Wednesday, July 16. The meeting will begin at 7 pm and will be ...
Free performances by professional actors will be presented under the stars at Connecticut Beardsley Zoo’s Peacock Pavilion, 1875 Noble Avenue. Shows...
An Adventure Back In Time
By Larissa Lytwyn
Modern-day stresses may consist of forgetting to pick up a much-needed carton of milk on the way home from work. Two...
From Italy, With Love––
Great-Grandmother Maria Ricci Travels To America
By Dottie Evans
July Fourth must be our most exuberant national...
To all Newtown Middle School and 5th/6th grade students - come on down and enjoy playing foosball, video games, pool, ping pong, or just hang out at the Teen Ce...
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!