Board of Education Welcomes New Teachers, Looks Ahead

The Cider Mill School cafeteria played host to the school year's first Board of Education meeting on Wednesday night, a cheerful and positive gathering that focused on announcing new teachers, strong progress and good vision amid lemonade and brownies.

Superintendent Dr. Gary Richards and BOE Chairman Karen Birck began the evening with consecutive reports. The highlights included the high school's construction reaching 95 percent completion and still being within budget and school transportation getting off to a rough start but reaching 97 percent safe and on-time service by midweek.

"Ms. Gottesman and I visited the majority of classrooms in the system on Aug. 31 and were impressed with the preparation and planning of our staff," Dr. Richards said during the meeting.

The Board also reviewed school enrollment and Dr. Richards noticed an interesting trend.

"We hypothesized that the economic downturn might cause families to withdraw people from private schools and enroll them in the public school system," he commented. "But the data does not corroborate this. The data pretty much matches the students that left public to go independent versus those that left independent to come to public."

The enrollment figures are as follows:

Miller: 467 projects; 470 actual

Driscoll: 468 projected; 477 actual

Cider Mill: 1,032 projected; 1,024 actual

Middlebrook: 1,023 projected; 1,035 actual

WHS: 1,280 projected; 1,300 actual

TOTAL: 4,270 projected; 4,306 actual

The board also covered the potential for H1N1 flu outbreaks, directing those in attendance to visit the Wilton Flu Response Team's website and carefully follow their instructions.

But perhaps the most cheerful and entertaining portion of the meeting was the introduction of the system's new teachers and staff, many of whom were in attendance.  The system welcomed 19 new teachers all told, including four new Spanish teachers, one administrator, a school psychologist, a speech pathologist, and two interim teachers that were re-hired.

The new teachers and staff include:

Cider Mill School

• Kathrene Cunius - Special Education teacher
• Jennifer Dunseith - Special Education teacher
• Michelle Grimaldi - Elementary teacher
• Elizabeth Horne - Elementary teacher
• Tracey Kairit - Special Education teacher
• Erica Rome - Interim Elementary teacher

Miller/Driscoll

• Jennifer Judge - Music teacher
• Kristin Lester - Speech Pathologist
• Karen Mattera - Music teacher
• Mary Worster - Special Education
• Tiffany Romaniello - Interim Elementary teacher
• Lynn Sutherland - Interim Elementary

Middlebrook

• Jennifer Howley - Math teacher
• Aracely Martinez - World Language teacher
• Carlina Stillone - World Language

Wilton High School

• Fernando Fernandez - World Language teacher
• Elizabeth Gifford - English teacher
• Melissa Giovanniello - Math teacher
• Veronica Hernandez - Spanish teacher

In closing, the board reported that the public school system ended the 2008 fiscal year with a $369,000 budget surplus.