The Day - Stonington school board: Get students back faster - News from southeastern Connecticut theday.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theday.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Stonington The Board of Education on Thursday night decided not to approve the 2021-22 proposed budget because some members felt the 4.8% increase was too much.
Last month, Superintendent of Schools Van Riley proposed a $41.6 million budget with a $3.4 million, or 8.9%, increase from last year s budget to the board.
While the Board of Finance has recommended the school budget increase not exceed 1.5%, Riley has pointed out that the school budget has shown decreases of 0.30% and 1.32% in the past two years. Even with an 8.9% increase, he said, the three-year average increase would be 2.4%, which is the average of what had been approved in years before that and is what is needed to maintain programs.
Stonington Parents pleaded with the school board Thursday night to allow students to return to full in-person classes instead of the hybrid mode that has been used since September.
They told the board the current instruction mode in which students go to school in person two days a week and learn remotely three days a week has led to students not being engaged in learning, being left behind academically and increased cases of anxiety, depression, eating disorders and other problems.
Others said data support the safety of full-time in-person learning. They challenged school officials and staff to creatively deal with issues such as staffing in order to get students back in class full time and asked why other school systems, such as East Lyme, are returning to in-person learning.
Herculean effort needed for local hospitality industry to recover pbn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pbn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In the waning days of 2020, as a pandemic ravages New England, Evan Smith has a notion that buoys him.
It contrasts sharply with the nightmarish challenges that tested him this year when he says disease-driven economic conditions forced him to cut staff at his travel-focused marketing firm, Discover Newport.
In Smith’s vision, it’s mid to late summer 2021. By then, vaccines have protected huge segments of the population from the virus that causes COVID-19.
People all over the Northeast are traveling, dining out and breathing more freely.
“We will start to feel freedom of mobility,” Smith says. “That is going to be a euphoric, wonderful thing for a lot of people.”