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- Published on Thursday, 02 February 2012 15:17
- Written by Paula Pierce
While it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain our usual standard of living in these challenging economic times, the Windsor Board of Education takes on the very difficult task of actually doing more with less. At January’s regularly scheduled school Board meeting, then Interim Superintendent Perlini, proposed a very lean, .99% increase in the Town’s investment in education. This very lean proposal delivers on a long-standing wish in the Town to provide all-day Kindergarten for each of our early learners. This investment proposal also creates and expands learning opportunities for all our students, as Dr. Perlini reminds us, “…the living messages we send into the future”.
In addition to all-day Kindergarten, the proposal makes investments in a foreign language elementary school program, fully implements the restructuring of our elementary schools, K-12 implementation of Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies (PBIS) which greatly improves school climate creating a positive learning environment that enhances teachers ability to teach and students opportunity to learn. Sage Park Middle School implemented PBIS two years ago and has had phenomenal success. At Windsor High School in addition to maintaining a comprehensive curriculum, we will be expanding school-to-career opportunities for our young men and women, such as the Xerox’s School to Career Program in the Applied and Advanced Graphics courses. This financial proposal, lean though it may be, enhances our ability to continually invest in the future of our Town, our children.
Two years ago the Board engaged in a long-range planning effort that looked at the effects of declining enrollment on facilities use and by extension educational programs in the District. What we found was that by restructuring how we deliver elementary education we could maximize the impact of our educational investment while lowering the cost to taxpayers. This proposal reflects the gains from those Board decisions to our students and the savings to taxpayers.
Yes, the need for more investment in education exists. Dr. Perlini shared with us the impact of a prioritized list of needs throughout the District. Funding those needs would have required over an 8% increase over last year’s investment. As we continue to rationalize and balance the need for additional investments in education with our ability to pay we will have to seriously consider some of the deferments the District will be making this year.
It is the Board’s intention, to engage our new Superintendent, Dr. Villar in a strategic analysis of our educational services and programs. We will seek to develop a 5year strategic plan that prioritizes educational equity and excellence for each of our children. Ideally this plan will include an economic impact assessment that will provide clear guidance so that we can optimize our educational investments as we provide for our Town’s future.
The Board invites you to share your thoughts on the proposal, it can be found on our site, http://www.windsorct.org/boe/reports/documents/12.01.24_2012-13_%20Budget_Presentation.pdf. One more forum will be held on Tuesday, February 7th at 7:00pm at the Board’s offices at LP Wilson. As we work toward educational equity and excellence for our children we are deeply appreciative of Windsor’s commitment to public education.
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