Education

Students Reunite With Didi Maa During Newtown Visit

By Eliza Hallabeck

Published: Jul 16, 2018 12:00 AM

Roughly three months after Newtown High School students traveled to India through the Newtown International Center for Education (NICE), Newtown welcomed Sadhvi Ritambharaji, known as Didi Maa, on Jul...

Newtown Continuing Education's SMART Camp Begins

By Eliza Hallabeck

Published: Jul 14, 2018 12:00 AM

Newtown Continuing Education's SMART (Summer Music and Art) Camp began its summer classes on July 2 this year. The camp runs for two weeks, in two sessions. This year's second session will run from Ju...

Newtown High School Fourth Quarter Honor Roll

Published: Jul 13, 2018 12:00 AM

The following students made the High Honor Roll and Honor Roll for the fourth quarter marking period at Newtown High School for the 2017-18 school year. The honor roll listings were recently released ...

Hands And Hearts Make Sweet Memories For Departing St Rose Principal, Sister Colleen

By Eliza Hallabeck

Published: Jul 09, 2018 12:00 AM

When Sister Colleen Therese Smith first arrived at St Rose of Lima School for the 2014-15 academic year, she asked room after room of students about her new school; students resoundingly told her the ...

Middle Gate Honors Students, American Legion Awards Teachers

By Eliza Hallabeck

Published: Jul 08, 2018 12:00 AM

Middle Gate Elementary School held its end of the year fourth grade awards assembly on the last day of the 2017-18 school year, June 26. The event highlighted student achievement from the year, and re...

School Board Celebrates Teacher And Paraeducator Of The Year Awardees

By Eliza Hallabeck

Published: Jul 07, 2018 12:00 AM

The Board of Education celebrated the Newtown Public Schools 2018-19 Paraeducator of the Year and its 2018-19 Teacher of the Year at its meeting on June 20. Hawley Elementary School paraeducator Linda...

Fraser Woods Montessori School Ceremonies Mark Graduation

Published: Jul 06, 2018 12:00 AM

Fraser Woods Montessori School held a kindergarten graduation ceremony at the school on June 7, and it held a ceremony that evening at the Newtown Meeting House for its eighth grade graduating class. ...

Madness At Middle Gate, To The Delight Of All

By Eliza Hallabeck

Published: Jul 06, 2018 12:00 AM

Cheers from students and laughter from parents could be heard coming from behind Middle Gate Elementary School in the early evening of June 22 as the school's annual Middle Gate Madness event was unde...

Jeanne Kaye-Eleck

SMT Corp Expands ISO/IEC 17025 And SAE AS6171 Accreditations To UK Laboratory, Strengthening Global Counterfeit Detection Capabilities

Snapshot: Brady Dunn

Kling Brothers Builders Offers Community A Different Type Of Career Path

Newtown Woman’s Club 2025 Pewter Ornament ‘A Transfusion Of Patriotism’

Unfortunately, I think this is likely to get worse, not better... Based on both public comments and private conversations, I’m increasingly concerned that our newly elected First Selectman intends not just to install these cameras, but to expand their use for full-blown enforcement and fines. Try getting a straight answer out of him about the long-term plan and you quickly realize how vague the responses become. Tyler is absolutely right to raise the privacy issue. These systems don’t just “catch speeders” — they quietly build a database of where we drive, when we drive, and who is in our vehicles. Once that infrastructure is in place, it becomes very easy to justify expanding its scope: more cameras, more locations, more uses, and eventually more automated enforcement. If Newtown is going down this road, residents deserve clear, written answers to some basic questions before anything is expanded: What limits will be placed on how and where cameras are used? Will footage and plate data be used only for speed enforcement, or for other investigations too? How long will data be stored, and who can access it? What safeguards will prevent vendors and individuals from abusing this information? Without firm, enforceable rules in place, “just a few cameras to slow traffic” can turn into something very different over time. I support safe roads — but not at the cost of unchecked surveillance and vague promises from our leaders. You try getting straight answers out of our First Selectman, myself and others have not been able to...

Discusses Traffic Cameras

I had to hold back a laugh at the idea that 7:30 pm is apparently such a late-night hardship that we’re already talking about moving meetings earlier. For a lot of residents, 7:30 is the earliest they can realistically get to Town Hall after work, family obligations, and the rest of real life. Shifting BOS meetings to 7:00 might make the calendar look tidier for those in the building, but it makes participation harder for the people who pay for the building. If the new First Selectman’s week is already booked solid and evening meetings feel like a strain, that’s not a reason to move the goalposts on public access—it's a reminder that the job is supposed to be demanding. Public service means accommodating the public, even when it’s inconvenient.

Walczak Adjusts To New Role, First Board Meeting

Real people were just in a frightening car accident. To immediately frame their misfortune as rhetorical ammunition against new housing — affordable housing included — feels less like concern for “health and safety” and more like opportunistically using a scary moment to support a pre-existing position. If we’re going to debate this proposal, we should do it honestly: with data on traffic volume, accident history, engineering recommendations, and the town’s housing needs, not by seizing on a single crash as proof that 300 apartments are inherently unsafe. Newtown deserves a thoughtful, fact-based conversation about growth, safety, and affordability — one that doesn’t turn other people’s bad day into a political talking point.

How Many Accidents Will It Take?

To add context that did not occur at the meeting would not be an accurate representation of the meeting and would, in fact, be editorializing to shape public opinion. The editorial staff here do not consider ourselves to be final arbiters of what the truth is (and if we did, it would make us partisan and biased), and we would need to provide a source for any dissenting information (sourcing all information in an article is literally Journalism 101). There were no such sources present at the meeting in question, and so it would not be appropriate to include such information in an article about the meeting. Dissenting voices appear in meeting stories when there were active participants with dissenting opinions, such as during public participation or the words of a council member who disagreed. It should be noted that the Interfaith Council, like many local boards and commissions, conduct meetings that are open to the public. This was not an article on the actions of the Greater Danbury Area Unites for Immigrants, or on immigrants, or on ICE's actions in the community, where including other voices or perspectives would be appropriate. We appreciate your opinion, but we stand by our meeting coverage and consider this discussion closed.

NIC Speaks With Danbury Unites For Immigrants, Discusses 12/14 Service

Propaganda is the systematic dissemination of information, often biased or misleading, to shape public perception and behavior toward a specific political cause or point of view. I'm not asking for Newtown Bee to editorialize, but providing context, where appropriate, to provide the reader with a more holistic view of the facts seems like a reasonable practice, particularly when encouraging the reader to decide what to believe/not to believe. Absent that context, this feels biased and misleading and intended to shape public perception.

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Students Reunite With Didi Maa During Newtown Visit

Newtown Continuing Education's SMART Camp Begins

Newtown High School Fourth Quarter Honor Roll

Hands And Hearts Make Sweet Memories For Departing St Rose Principal, Sister Colleen

Middle Gate Honors Students, American Legion Awards Teachers

School Board Celebrates Teacher And Paraeducator Of The Year Awardees

Fraser Woods Montessori School Ceremonies Mark Graduation

Madness At Middle Gate, To The Delight Of All