Windsor Locks Town Officials Get First Look at School Budget

Superintendent of Schools Wayne Sweeney presented his district’s $28.79 million education budget to finance officials Wednesday night, highlighting several new initiatives and ways to improve curriculum.

The school budget represents a 5.25 percent increase when compared to the current year.

Board of Finance Chairman Cornelius O’Leary told Sweeney that his board will consider the budget and discuss it further next week. If finance officials make any changes to the proposed school budget, the Board of Education can appeal the changes at a meeting scheduled for April 3.

The public will have a chance to further weigh in on the school plan during a budget public hearing that will be scheduled for the end of April.

“You have presented some very bold initiatives,” O’Leary said. “We will do what we can to help you achieve that.”

Of the new initiatives, the proposed budget includes an extended day/extended year program at the elementary and middle schools and additional opportunities for high school students to earn college credits at Asnuntuck Community College.

“We need to engage and empower our kids,” Sweeney said. “It is not good enough for our kids to be average in Windsor Locks. Not anymore. We need to provide opportunities for all kids to achieve at levels never before imaginable.”

Sweeney said that the new curriculum should be implemented next year and that he’d like to implement the extended day/extended year program, which would take one teacher out of each grade level in kindergarten through eighth grade, at the same time.

The program will involve the teachers working with small groups of students, who are having difficulty in school, during an after school and for a few weeks in the summer to provide extra support. To accommodate the program schedule, the teachers will work different hours, coming in later and staying later in the day. During the school day they could provide support for other teachers, working with students and helping to implement the new curriculum.

Sweeney expects the program would provide an additional 200 hours of instruction, but would result in a slight increase in class sizes, which has raised some concerns. Sweeney said class sizes have been low the last few years, and would increase slightly but would still not go over 25 students per class and in some grades would be around 20 students.

The second part of the new initiatives provides multiple pathways for high school students. Currently there is a program for EWHS students to attend Asnuntuck for a welding program. This would expand the program so students also could earn college credits in career clusters, including criminal justice, communications, IT and health sciences.

Another proposed program is a partnership with Hartford Hospital that would provide EMT certification for students and four college credits.

Sweeney said having programs like these could reduce the number of students that go out of district to magnet, charter and vocational agricultural schools. Currently 138 students go out of district, which costs about $800,000 for tuition and transportation costs.

The proposed budget also includes a proposed assistant superintendent position. This would replace the position of director of curriculum and development, as the person in that position is retiring. It also includes a 3 percent raise for Sweeney, whose current base salary is $155,000.

Sweeney pointed out that last year the budget increase was 1.48 percent and the previous year there was no increase. He said if the budget proposal is reduced even just 1 percent the new initiatives will not be funded and there will be staff cuts, which will result in class size increases.

A few people in an audience of about 85 encouraged the Board of Finance to approve the increase.

Karen Giannelli, President of the South Elementary PTO, said she supports Sweeney and the proposed 5.25 percent increase. “The new programs are about boosting the achievement for all kids,” she said. “We deserve that, so does the town and so do the kids.”

Eric Refsnider, a teacher at the Windsor Locks Middle School, said students need the tools the world is using, when the discussion centered on technology spending. “We have to determine where we are going and what we are doing. We need to figure out how to raise the children of Windsor Locks together,” he said to scattered applause.