After the flood: new drains

SHARON — The Board of Education (BOE) held its first meeting of the school year at Sharon Center School (SCS) on Monday, Sept. 16. Chairman Electra Tortorella was unable to attend, so Vice Chairman Marilyn Yerks led the meeting in her place. Region One Superintendent Patricia Chamberlain presented her report, noting that the first day of school went uniformly well at all the schools in the district. Chamberlain also discussed the new teacher evaluation system, which will be piloted this year. “We’re very excited about it, but it’s also very demanding on your principal’s time,” she said. “We’re concerned just about the sheer number of observations and the time it takes to have pre-conferences, observations and post-conferences, so we’re going to be monitoring it.”Chamberlain said that some schools are discussing having outside observers collect data to relieve the burden on administrators, although she did not specify which schools had raised the possibility. In terms of enrollment, all schools have kept pace with projected figures; in fact, SCS’s projected enrollment for 2013 was 177 students, which is exactly the number of students enrolled this year. Official enrollment data for each school will be available on Oct. 1. SCS Principal Karen Manning said that the first day of school went smoothly for her students, and “the only uninvited guest this summer was a bat.” The State Police had to come to the school at 3 a.m. on a Sunday to deal with the intruder, but Manning emphasized that the security system did an impeccable job detecting it, and the police responded in a timely fashion.The school has had two major floods—one in June and one in August—and the drainage system is in need of repair, she said. She has spoken with Region One Business Manager Sam Herrick about a possible solution to one aspect of the problem: a slope that carries water away from the drain.“In the area in front of the building, the ground doesn’t slope in the right direction toward the drain, so you need to change the slope so that it goes away from the building and add a drain,” she said. To fix the slope, the sidewalk in front of the building would have to be removed. Manning said that the job would involve the removal of dirt from the foundation in the front of the building, as well as the installation of rubber sheeting and the construction of one more drain. Then, caps for two of the downspouts and two new downspouts for the existing gutters need to be added. R&S Roofing of Middlebury, Conn., gave an estimate of $3,470 for the downspouts. In total, Herrick estimated that the entire project would cost between $24,000 and $27,000, including the cost of the downspout work. “I think we’re obligated to make a fast effort so the flooding doesn’t happen again,” she said. Manning also reported on student scores on the Connecticut Mastery Tests taken last year. She said that the results “were interesting,” but that they are no longer fully relevant in Connecticut schools, because the curriculum has been adjusted to meet the new Common Core standards.Next year, the school will get benchmark data for the Smarter Balance Assessment, which will reflect the success of Common Core implementation. All schools in the district will have an early dismissal on Wednesday, Sept. 25, so that teachers can attend a workshop on developing Student Learning Objectives, which are essential to the Common Core.