Norwich school board candidates debate budgets, NFA relations

Norwich — Ten of the 11 candidates for school board debated Thursday in a format that divided candidates by party slates in answering questions ranging from school consolidation, budget cuts and plans to convert the city’s two middle schools into magnet schools, and the city’s relationship with Norwich Free Academy.

Republican incumbent Aaron “Al” Daniels, the current board chairman, was unable to attend the debate.

The sometimes tense relationship with NFA turned into the most hotly contested issue discussed during the debate, which was hosted by the Norwich Bulletin with Editorial Page Editor Annamaria Della Costa as moderator.

Incumbent Republican Dennis Slopak said public school officials tried to negotiate a new contract with NFA two years ago and ended up being forced to accept a contract the academy had negotiated with the other seven, much smaller sending towns. Slopak accused NFA officials of delaying and even lying about the status of negotiations.

Democratic incumbent school board member Joyce Werden said the public school system has to work at improving its relationship with NFA. She said it’s in NFA’s best interest to have better-prepared eighth-graders entering the academy.

“Just because we haven’t been successful in the past doesn’t mean we give up,” Werden said.

Newcomer Republican candidate Patricia Staley said she would like to see the NFA tuition bill be made a separate line item in the budget, so that it is presented to the City Council not as part of the school budget but as a bill. Democrats and Republicans agreed with that scenario, if possible, since city budget cuts to the school budget can apply only to the elementary and middle schools.

“(NFA) should be a separate line item in the budget,” Democratic incumbent Robert Aldi said.

Slopak also was vocal in his stance on school restructuring. He was the lone member on the current school board who pushed a single-campus restructured school, with wings for different grade levels and common areas at the center, to save money.

The school’s hired consultants drew up plans calling for renovating-as-new four of the city’s elementary schools and restructuring by grade level rather than by geography.

Democratic candidate Heather Romanski said the plan was flawed in that teachers weren’t brought to the table until nearly the end, and families could have been involved more in the process. She and other candidates agreed the issue will come back to the future board.

“The model of community schools is something that’s over 100 years old, with kids walking to schools,” Democratic candidate Mark Kulos said. “It is pretty dead, now.”

Kulos said whether it’s one campus or several buildings, renovations will be necessary with the city’s aging, “deteriorating” buildings.

Asked what they would like to add to the budget, Democratic candidate James Maloney said the schools need enrichment programs such as art, music, drama and world languages.

Werden said the new federal magnet school funding announced in September to convert the city’s two middle schools into magnet schools — $2 million per school spread over five years — would help bring those programs to the schools. Under the plan, Kelly Middle School will become a STEAM school, stressing science, technology, engineering, arts and math, while Teachers’ Memorial will concentrate on global studies. Both schools will be for grades six through eight.

Candidates debated, however, whether the schools could sustain those programs after the magnet school funding runs out. Republican candidate Rodney Bowie said the programs will not be sustainable when funding runs out, but Democrats disagreed.

Romanski, a parent of students in the grant-funded Moriarty environmental sciences magnet elementary school, said that funding is drying up as well, but the programs, teacher training and curriculum are established at the school and will continue.

When it came to discussing the budget and spending priorities, Slopak credited fellow Republican incumbent Rashid Haynes — appointed to the board in February to fill a vacancy — with the stance the board took to save classroom teaching positions. The school administration had proposed cutting several teachers when faced with a $1.5 million cut in the budget request.

Instead, the board cut transportation and fuel budgets and special education.

Incumbent Democrat Yvette Jacaruso said cutting the budget isn’t easy, because the city school system is burdened by dozens of unfunded mandates that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. She said she hopes to lobby state legislators to reduce those mandates.

Werden said the school system has cut “basically everything” that can be cut. She said the latest reductions are uncertain. Cutting the fuel budget means the board has to “hope for a warm winter” and cutting special education also means hoping those uncontrollable costs won’t increase.

Candidates from both parties put saving classroom teaching positions at the top of their priority lists. As many of you know on friday October 20th my mother passed away from a very aggressive cancer.

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