Bethel school board adds two positions to ’23-’24 budget plan
Board of Ed adopts $54.4M budget plan
BETHEL — The Board of Education adopted a larger 2023-24 spending plan for the town’s schools than the one Superintendent Christine Carver proposed in January.
The $54.4 million budget approved at the school board’s Feb. 2 meeting includes new positions for two intervention specialists that were not included in Carver’s original spending plan.
Carver told Hearst Connecticut Media there was “a significant reason” why the board added the two positions, bringing the proposed year-overyear spending increase from 5.95 percent to 6.37 percent.
In addition to one regular education teacher at Johnson, the district will lose funding for one specialist and six tutors who currently provide intervention services to over 700 students, when its ESSER funds expire at the end of 2024.
“The board felt very strongly — and I don’t disagree — that the amount of support should not be reduced because there is still a need,” Carver said.
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, known as ESSER, granted the state additional funds for school districts to address the substantial disruptions to student learning, interpersonal interactions and social-emotional well-being due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Without the addition of the two specialist positions, Carver said, about 200 students would not get the additional support they need in literacy and mathematics.
The proposed FY24 school budget — which aims to support and address students’ academic and social-emotional needs amid growing enrollment and rising costs — will be presented to the Board of Finance on Tuesday.