Tuesday evening, Dr. Guy Stella, Superintendent of Beecher Road School presented the proposed Beecher Road School 2010-2011 budget at the third and final operating budget presentations before the Boards of Selectmen and Finance at Town Hall in Woodbridge.

Prior to his presentation was a brief presentation about the pool and the gym. The boards were informed that a capital expense should be expected in a few years to replace the hot water boiler for the pool and showers, and to re-grout the pool. For the coming year, a status quo budget is proposed. There were a few comments about the replacement of the drain and about people now using the pool. It was a very quick presentation.

The Woodbridge Board of Education presentation was the big presentation for the evening. Chair of the Woodbridge Board of Education, Sheila McCreven thanked the public for its support of public education, and noted the great turnout of supporters of the school at the presentation. She spoke about how the board is always looking for ways to save additional money, including looking at the strategic school profiles of various towns to see if new ideas can be gleaned.

With this, she turned the presentation over to Dr. Stella. Dr. Stella presented the budget in the context of the history of free compulsory education in Woodbridge. He started with a picture of the Old South School from 1866. He noted that it had burned down and there was a new South School built in 1877.

Skipping forward, he talked about the building of the Center School in 1929 and the end of the era of one room schoolhouses in Woodbridge. He traced the history of our school system through the life of Alice Farr and her brother George who attended the Center School. He highlighted the assessment categories on report cards back then; Obedient, Ambitious, Clean, and so on. He then noted Ray Cowles. Ray and Alice were high school sweethearts and went to Hill House High School in New Haven, before the days of Amity High School. The jobs they started their careers with were the jobs they ended their careers with and they lived their whole life in Woodbridge.

With this as a backdrop, Dr. Stella talked about how times have changed and how different the needs are in education for the twenty-first century. We are now part of a global community, connected via the Internet. Dr. Stella stated that we must “prepare children for their future, not for our past.”

With that, he addressed some of the issues of why looking at per pupil expenditures does not make a lot of sense. He looked at the per pupil expenditures for school districts that the State considers similar to our own and noted that while we are higher than some, we are not the highest. Yet here in Woodbridge, we have many residents with years of experience and advanced degrees and the town wants our teachers to also have years of experience and advanced degrees. Likewise, our town wants smaller class sizes so that each student can get the attention they need and deserve.

A key aspect of this includes literacy and helping students become lifelong readers and lifelong writers. This literacy needs to go beyond the traditional understandings of literacy and now include information literacy. He spoke about the importance of the science program and laboratory, something that not all schools have. He spoke about the importance of the math teachers. Currently, we have one math teacher per over three hundred students. Some of this is driven by new regulations, such as No Child Left Behind, and some of this is funded by Federal grants.

Dr. Stella spoke about the global aspects of twenty first century education. The school district seeks to promote not just an exploratory understanding of other languages, but proficiency. As a result, we have more language teachers than some other districts. We also have a sister school program and monthly Skype conference calls with schools half way around the world. This also comes in to play with character development, such as the current Hands Out To Haiti program where students at Beecher Road are helping raise funds and supplies for relief efforts. Another aspect of the educational experience at Beecher Road includes a focus on wellness and socio-emotional development.

Dr. Stella’s budget presentation and the context he presented it in answered many of the questions that members of the Boards of Selectmen and Finance had coming into the meeting. Over the coming months there will be continued efforts to refine the budget to make sure that the taxpayers of Woodbridge get the highest possible value for their tax dollars spent on the Beecher Road School.

Personal Postscript: As I write this, CT-N is broadcasting a tribute to the late Connecticut State Capitol Police Chief Michael Fallon. One speaker praised Chief Fallon saying, “He never stopped learning.” I imagine some teacher, principal, or superintendant in heaven is smiling at that tribute to Chief Fallon and the indirect tribute to the educator’s hard work. I hope that the administration, board, and teachers of Beecher Road, as well as the residents of Woodbridge will receive similar praise in years hence as graduates of Beecher Road School get praised for great community service fueled by a similar love of learning gained in our school district.

(Originally posted at the Woodbridge Citizen.)