Norwich school board approves new 5-year NFA contract

Changes mostly related to special education, costs, student placement

— The Board of Education on Tuesday approved a new five-year contract with Norwich Free Academy, although the city board did not get all the changes it had requested when it sought to negotiate rather than automatically renew the contract.

The contract is universal for all eight partner districts with NFA as their main designated high school. The Norwich board approved the sixpage agreement 7-0 Tuesday, with two board members absent.

Norwich sought several changes in language, mostly related to special education services, costs and placement of students. Some changes were included in the new contract, some were partially included and others not, according to a summary provided by Peter Maher, the Norwich school board attorney involved in the negotiations.

NFA agreed to make available upon request its “portfolio of specialty services and programs” in response to Norwich’s — and Preston’s — request for information about special education staffing, programs and information. The contract does not include Norwich’s request that NFA provide paraeducator support for special education students based on each student’s individual education plan. The contract also does not include Norwich’s request for documentation of NFA’s payments for special education services.

Norwich also sought quarterly invoices from NFA for regular and special education tuition payments. The contract calls for quarterly bills, but with a different payment schedule in July, October, January and April.

This past spring, NFA had proposed broad changes to special education services, some with sharp increases in tuition rates and new pro

proposed programs with high costs that surprised Norwich officials at budget time. Those programs and tuition hikes were eliminated in June, when the NFA Foundation agreed to provide a $1.3 million onetime grant to freeze all tuitions at last year’s levels.

The new contract includes language that if the academy changes the tuition for any of its programs, beyond typical annual increases, “the sending Board will be advised of the change and the basis for the change.” Attorney Maher wrote to the Norwich board that the new language is unclear whether it permits NFA to make tuition revisions other than the annual increases NFA must notify the district of by Feb. 1 each year.

One section of new language in the contract reflected a dispute Norwich sought to resolve with assistance from the state Department of Education. Norwich did not need to negotiate the issue after the state ruled last summer that NFA is responsible for paying for tutoring of students expelled from the academy for disciplinary reasons. Previously, NFA had billed the partner districts for the tutoring. NFA in November established an evening program for expelled students at its Sachem Campus, which houses a transitional program.

With Norwich’s approval Tuesday, three of the eight partner districts have approved the new five-year NFA contract, with Preston and Lisbon having approved it previously, NFA spokesman Michael O’Farrell said. NFA anticipates Bozrah, Canterbury, Franklin, Sprague and Voluntown school boards will vote on the contract at upcoming meetings this summer, O’Farrell said.