Parents speak out to Town Council

Change of start times ‘cruel’ to 5-year-old students, some say

NEW CANAAN — Leaving school start times as they are was the plea from some parents recently to the Town Council.

As many as 100 people, mostly parents, joined a virtual Town Council meeting on the school budget on March 25 with many more watching on channel 79.

Two-thirds of the speakers urged the council to pass the $83.3 million school 2021-22 budget, which is the largest portion of the town’s $154.4 million operating budget. It includes $463,337 earmarked for change in school start times, set to take place mid-year.

Last year, the Town Council had cut $1.14 million earmarked to allow high school students to start school at 8:30 a.m. while elementary schools would start school at 7:45 a.m., the same plan as this budget.

Though most speakers supported the budget that included change start times, some parents pleaded that the district reconsider.

Parent James Yao estimated elementary school children will need to go to bed 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m to meet Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requirements of up to 12 hours of sleep for children ages 6 to 12.

Yao commutes to New York City and fears he will have trouble getting home in time to see his children. “I can’t think of a crueler thing to do to a 5-yearold little child than to rip a parent from their daily lives,” he exclaimed.

South School students presently attend school during the same time as New Canaan High School students. South School parents assured the rest of the families that they won’t have a an issue becoming accustomed

to earlier start times.

Most speakers during the meeting agreed, saying they were thankful that the district had kept schools open during the pandemic. Often speakers said they had friends and relatives in other districts who were “envious, since their schools had closed.”

Superintendent Bryan Luizzi is a “true leader” and the “entire administrative team have done an exceptional job in steering our community through difficult times,” Anne Schimick said as she asked town council to fully fund the school board.

Some feared rejecting the budget would be a slap in the face for a school board and superintendent who had done an exceptional job in their eyes.

Earlier this month, the Board of Finance removed $900,000 from the school budget to wait for a better estimate of COVID-19 related expenses. Then, they were to issue appropriations; and took out $2.2 million to transfer the responsibility of the internal sercitizens vices fund to the town.

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Board of Finance Chairman Todd Lavieri have said the changes are not cuts and will not have any impact on the school district — rather it just “improves financial practices.”

“I just think people need to believe in our Board of Finance,” Moynihan told Hearst.

If Town Council wants the original Board of Education budget to pass on, they would have to return it to the Board of Finance.

“If we reject a budget it goes back to the Board of Finance. We can choose to vote on the Board of Education budget in total, or line by line,” Chairman John Engel told Hearst Connecticut Media. “Instead of rejecting it, we can send back just a piece. For example, if we vote on the $3.1 million separately, it’s potential failure would not hold up the rest of the budget. Just that piece goes back.”

The same would be for the over $400,000 of school start times expenses.

“If it was voted on separately it’s failure would not impact other items,” the chairman said. “There are other implications: for the to ask for a referendum it has to be based on a vote the Town Council took. If the vote is on the whole budget then pieces of it would not be subject to referendum. You’d have to referendum the whole budget.”

Under the proposed plan, the three elementary schools would start at 7:45 a.m., the high school would begin at 8:30 a.m., Saxe Middle School’s upper division of seventh and eighth-graders would commence at 8:35 a.m. and Saxe’s lower division with fifth and sixth-graders would hear the first bell at 9:15 a.m.