Seymour Museum
Will Be Open Sept. 12
SEYMOUR — The Seymour Historical Society Museum will be open on Sunday, September 12, from 1 to 4 pm.
Many ite...
With a 4-over 74, Ben Gersten easily captured the recent Rock Ridge Country Club Junior Golf Championship.
Gersten stayed well ahead of his closest competitors ...
A Conservative On Bush
To the Editor:
How can a true conservative support G.W. Bush? I am a registered Republican with a conservative viewpoint, and I canâ€...
Friday, September 3
Who
’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Town Players of Newtown, curtain 8 pm, The Little Theatre, Orchard Hill Road, ti...
All town offices will be closed on Monday, September 6, in observation of the Labor Day holiday.
The Newtown Senior Center, C.H. Booth Library, and the transfer...
Countering A Violent Society
DANBURY — A series of prevention workshops, developed to promote a safer community, and with a focus on physical, emoti...
Here’s Something Satisfying To Wrap
Up The Summer Movie Season
When good guys go bad…
Hollywood has been ambivalent about whether it likes it...
A Call To Healing: One Body,
One Spirit At A Time
By Kaaren Valenta
Karen S. Judd is an interfaith minister, a Reiki master, and a licensed clinical social wor...
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!