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April 23, 2013
Dear Members of the Litchfield Community,
As we return to school following our spring
recess, I have exciting news to share with regard to the
broadcasting of Board of Education meetings. You may be aware
that we have struggled with some intermittent difficulties with
the audio and video quality of our broadcasts, while waiting to
receive news about our grant application to the PUC that will
provide funding for specialized equipment. The good news is that
Litchfield has now been notified of our successful application
and will receive an award of $78,343.16 to purchase equipment
and software that will enable us to improve the quality of our
broadcasts and to broaden our educational opportunities for
students as they expand their capacity in media production.
On May 6 the PTO and STPC will sponsor a
second School
Security Forum as a follow up session
to our first meeting held in January. We will update parents and
the community about actions that have been taken in the schools
to increase security, and will revisit the questions that were
raised during the first meeting. Please plan to join us on May 6
at 7:00 PM in the LIS auditorium for this important meeting.
Our students in grades 3 through 8 and grade
11 will soon participate in pilot testing that will provide the
opportunity for us to garner information about the format and
question design on the new
Smarter Balanced
Assessment.
This test will replace the CMT and CAPT during the spring of
2015. In addition, we will participate in a CT State Department
of Education (CSDE) "Practice Assessment". This assessment will
provide feedback about student learning based on Common Core
State Standards. Although the results of the assessment will be
aggregated by grade, with no feedback on individual performance,
we believe that the information we receive will be quite
valuable. Our students will have the opportunity to experience
the new computer-based testing protocols, and we will receive
information that will inform our curriculum alignment with the
CCSS. Although we hesitate to engage in additional standardized
testing so soon after the CMT and CAPT administration, we
believe that the benefits of participation outweigh the
drawbacks regarding this pilot testing. Parents will receive
information from their child’s school as applicable.
As part of our participation in the CSDE educator evaluation
and development pilot program this year, the school district
recently sent to parents a survey to garner feedback about your
thoughts pertaining to our schools. I urge you to complete the
survey if you have not already done so. This survey has been
funded by the CSDE as part of the evaluation pilot program and
is being managed by their vendor, Panorama. No one in the
district will have access to disaggregated information; we will
only receive data that is not individually identifiable. Please
consider participating in this process.
Finally, tomorrow evening the Town of Litchfield will hold
the annual budget hearing at 7:00 PM in the LIS auditorium.
Information pertaining to the Litchfield Public Schools’
2013-2014 Budget is posted on our website at
www.litchfieldschools.org Briefly, our 2013-2014 budget now
stands at $15,826,545. This is an increase of $174,794 or 1.12%
over the current year budget. Members of the Board of Education
and school administration will participate in the hearing and
will be available to answer any
questions that members of the public may have about the
school district budget. You are strongly encouraged to attend
the meeting.
I sincerely welcome interest in our school community and
cordially invite you to explore the educational opportunities
offered by the Litchfield Public Schools. Additional information
and data pertaining to the Litchfield Public Schools are
available on the Connecticut State Department of Education
website at www.csde.state.ct.us. In addition, I recommend that
you bookmark our district website at www.litchfieldschools.org
for up to date information about our schools and programs,
including our district activities and athletic department
calendars.
I can be reached at wheelerd@litchfieldschools.org . Thank
you again for your ongoing support of the students and staff of
the Litchfield Public Schools.
Sincerely,
Deborah S. Wheeler, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
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