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HARTFORD — The state Department of Education has a new spokesperson, effect Friday.

 Kelly Ann Donnelly, was introduced as the new director of communications by Commissioner of Education Stefan Pryor. She will make $82,000 in the job.

Jim Polities, who held the role, will transition to direct community affairs in support of regional school choice programming.

 Pryor said the position was established as part of the agency’s strategic reorganization and approved by the State Board of Education in January 2012.

 Donnelly, is from Edison, New Jersey, and has served in a number of communications and campaign management roles, most recently as field coordinator for New York State Committeewoman Jo Anne Simon and as field director for Dignity 2012, a Massachusetts statewide ballot initiative in support of the Death with Dignity Act.

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HARTFORD– State legislators were assured Thursday that the $1,172,000 cut in the Technical High Schools under the budget cuts ordered by Gov. Dannel Malloy shouldn’t keep Wright-Tech in Stamford from reopening in 2014.

 Pat Ciccione, superintendent of the state’s Technical High School system until she leaves in January to become superintendent of schools in Westbrook, said the school is still on track to open. Wright Tech was closed in 2009 as a state budget cutting measure and is undergoing an extensive renovation.

 She said it would be money wasted if the state didn’t move forward to reopen the school very well underway. Still, Ciccione told a joint committee of the legislature’s Education, Higher Education and Labor committees that “we have to look at everything.”

She admitted she isn’t sure where the state rescission cuts will come from, but said she will try to stay away from instruction. “It will be hard,” she said. “We are already five months into the school year. We already operate as lean as we can.”

 It is quite possible special electives will disappear. Sports also could be sacrificed, she said, adding that she knows that would not be popular.

 The annual review of the technical high school system came one day after Malloy announced the cuts. Commissioner of Education Stefan Pryor, who also addressed the committees, also wasn’t prepared to say what will be cut.

 “It won’t be possible to isolate the impact entirely but we will make a great effort to do so,” he said. “These schools already run on a thin margin.”

The technical high school system serves 10,750 high school students and 450 adult students in 30 trades. This year, the system, which had been governed by the state Board of Education, got a new 11 member board of its own.

 The board started meeting this month and is chaired by Robert Trefry, who spent a year as chairman of the state-appointed Bridgeport school board. He surrendered that role in September when the state Supreme Court ordered that an elected school board be put back in place.

 Trefry said the new board is working on a strategic plan and is looking at admissions policies to address complaints that too many students are excluded from the schools. It also is working to be more responsive to the business community who want more students graduating with hi-tech manufacturing skills.

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BRIDGEPORT — It may not agree on most things, but when it comes to free, its not hard to get a unanimous nod from the city school board.

  The board, last night, gave a unanimous concensus to proceed with an offer from PhD candidate to make the climate of city schools the focus of his research. The plan had previously been approved by the state-appointed school board before the return of an elected board in September. Board Chair Jacqueline Kelleher said she just wanted to make sure the board was still on board with the plan.

 James Patsalides, an assistant professor at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven and a PhD candidate in the Sustainability Education at Prescott College in Prescott, AZ wants to assess the school climate in the district and see if it can be adjusted to improve learning outcomes and creativity in the classroom. Part of the study would involve surveying students, parents, teachers and staff.
It just so happens the district needs to start conducting annual climate surveys to comply with the state’s new bullying law.

 Patsalides said he is willing to do the work for free, at least through June 2014, when his PhD study will be done. Along with a research team made up of college students, he plans to create the survey, get feedback in January, field test it in February and administer it to students in grades 3-11 in April 2013. The results would be available by June. In 2013-14, the perspective of teachers and families will be sought. Then, Patsalides said the results will help shape a school climate “action” plan report.

Patsalides said chose Bridgeport because he loves the city, got his masters at Sacred Heart University and has friends who are teachers in the district. In addition, Kelleher was one of his former professors at Sacred Heart.

 ” I approached the social work department in the Spring with my project idea and we’ve been working together on it since then.  I hope this work has value for Bridgeport students – in the end, that’s what this work is all about,” he said. 

As part of the work, Patsalides plans to determine how the district can make better use of its Positive Behavior Intervention System, a program that works to make students more engaged and schools free of violence, bullying and bad behavior. The system may have to be customized to each school, he said.

Kelleher said Patsalides work will be supervised by qualified measurement and school climate professionals in the field. His doc program requires an assessment project and service learning.

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education, on Monday, released a new report that compares high school graduation rates by state using what it says is a more accurate and common measure.

In Connecticut, according to the report, 83 percent of all students in the class of 2011 graduated. For black students, that number was 71 percent, and for Hispanics, just 64 percent. Meanwhile, 89 percent of white students and 92 percent of Asian students graduated. Eleven states had higher graduation rates than Connecticut and five others were tied at 83 percent overall.
 The rates, for the 2010-11 school year, replaces a system that allowed states to use varying methods of defining whether a student graduated. Now the yardstick is consistant but is hard to compare to the old method.
So instead of telling whether the number of students graduating is going up or down, this year, instead, is considered a more accurate “snapshot.”
“By using this new measure, states will be more honest in holding schools accountable and ensuring that students succeed,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a statement that accompanied the report. “Ultimately, these data will help states target support to ensure more students graduate on time, college and career ready.”
In 2011, states began individually reporting 2010-11 high school graduation rates, but this is the first time the Department has compiled these rates in one public document. These 2010-11 graduation rates are preliminary, state-reported data, and the Department plans to release final rates in the coming months. Beginning with data for the 2011-12 school year, graduation rates calculated using this new method will become a key element of state accountability systems, including for states that have been approved for No Child Left Behind flexibility, according to the feds.

http://www2.ed.gov/documents/press-releases/state-2010-11-graduation-rate-data.pdf

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HARTFORD — The state Department of Education on Tuesday agreed to released promised Educational Cost Sharing dollars to two more Alliance Districts. Once again, Bridgeport wasn’t on the list.

 This time it was Middletown and Norwich, bringing to 28 out of 30 districts to get funds that are supposed tobe used to increase student achievement. Middletown will get $796,637 and Norwich, just over $1 million. The state listed a bunch of initiatives each will start with the money.

In reality, if they are like Bridgeport, the funds are already budgeted and expected in order to finish the year in the black. In the case of Bridgeport, the $4.4 million that represents the district’s “alliance” grant is a big red mark in the teacher salary account line of the district’s quarterly report. Regardless of what the city school district promises the state in what will no doubt be an inch-thick “plan,” the funding will go to pay for teachers, who are already in the classroom.

City school officials aren’t quite sure what the hold up is in releasing the funds. Bridgeport was one of the first districts to submit a plan to the state and according to Sandy Kase, chief administrative officer for the district, the tweeks have been minor. Essentially, the plan will replace the federal No Child Left Behind effort to make sure all students learn. There will be achievement targets and promises made about how much the district will improve student attendance, the graduation rate and lower student suspensions.

 An Alliance report update is on the school board’s agenda for Monday.

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BRIDGEPORT — City guidance counselors participated last week in a College Board webinar designed to prevent any future students from being turned away from any future SAT testing in the future.

Last month, a number of city students were turned away at Bassick High School because they lacked up-to-date identification cards which are now necessary to take the SAT’s. The new rules, designed to prevent impostors from taking the test, make no exceptions, even when the test monitors are teachers who know the students.

Last week, more than 170 city students took the November SAT test without incident, said Michael Testani, head of guidance for the district. Testani told members of the Board of Education’s Student achievement committee that the guidance staff is working to make sure they know every student planning to take the test, even though they each have a case load of about 300 students.

According to Testani, about 100 juniors in each high school are enrolled in an SAT prep class but there are others who take the SAT’s on their own.

The district is also working to give the picture ID’s given to students a longer shelf life. One thought is to give students an ID card that wouldn’t expire until they graduate. Board member Sauda Baraka suggested the district might adopt what New Haven apparently does and give students an annual card that wouldn’t expire until the end of October each year. The SAT’s are traditionally given in early October. Some students don’t get new ID’s until after that time.

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BRIDGEPORT — Ron Rapice, a district teacher in the Talented and Gifted program has organized district-wide math tournaments, has put student poetry on city buses and has hosted an annual district poetry slam the past several years. His latest venture is Speak Bridgeport, a Poetry Café to be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, Dec. 3, at the University of Bridgeport Cox Student Center.

Featured will be words by members of the Bridgeport Public Schools and Greater Bridgeport community. The public is invited. The event is free.

For more information please contact Ron Rapice at 203-275-2167

Rrapice@bridgeportedu.net

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NEW HAVEN  — A committee has been named to select the next president of the Board of Regents for Higher Education.

The board, meeting at Southern Connecticut State University on Thursday, authorized Lew Robinson, its chairman, to select a search committee to replace Robert Kennedy, who resigned last month after it was discovered he gave out unauthorized raises to his top staff.

The search committee, which Robinson will chair, will include: Michael Fraser; Richard Balducci; Rene Lerer; Matt Fleury; Nick Donofrio; Naomi Cohen; Yvette Melendez and Merle Harris. All are members of the board.

Robinson will also, at a future date, name a   Advisory Committee made up of faculty, administrators, students, staff and others from the board’s 17 campuses, including four state universities, 12 community colleges, and Charter Oak online degree program.

The search became necessary after Kennedy, on the job a year, handed out raises totalling more than $260,000 to 20 staffers including Michael Meotti, vice president of the system. Meotti, who got, then turned back the largest raise — $47,280 — also resigned. The board subsequently named Philip Austin, a retired University of Connecticut president, to be interim regent’s president during the search, which could last six months.