In a report to the Board of Finance, school officials singled out parents and news outlets that sought information over the past year as having contributed to the cost overruns that now have the schools operating $807,000 in the red.
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School board officials approved a comprehensive reorganization of district management that includes cutting and creating various positions as part of a broader effort to improve accountability and streamline processes.
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After four years of leading Royle School and an entire career in Darien, Keith Margolus will be leaving this summer to take over as principal of Branchville Elementary School in Ridgefield.
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Darien Schools’ special education record-keeping has been strewn with errors and inaccuracies for years, leading to additional auditing costs to sort through the mess as the district continues to determine and implement best accounting practices.
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A new twist to the ever-complicated special education saga has come to light after some parents claimed that no substantive action has taken place to fix the variety of problems in Darien.
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A Hartford public relations firm billed Darien taxpayers over $50,000 during the past year to help the school district manage public perception of the special education crisis.
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Billions of dollars are flowing to public school districts across the country through a federal grant program designed to improve poor schools, yet the methods used to determine eligibility include data that have high margins of error, which appears to have enabled wealthy districts to receive some of this money. Continue reading
One year after parents began unraveling an assortment of problems with school management, transparency and legal compliance through a state complaint, many questions remain unanswered as parents continue to struggle to be heard.
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“English is a great language, but it’s part of the problem.”
Words of wisdom from Margie Gillis, project director at the Haskins Literacy Initiative at Yale University, delivered earlier this month to a room of parents and educators at Royle School. Gillis’s visit was sponsored by the Special Education Parent Advisory Committee, and she spoke for roughly two hours about dyslexia being both a blessing and a curse.
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Darien’s literacy program works for most students, but there is growing concern that the program is failing some of them, and that teachers lack the tools to get them back on track.
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David DesRoches 