NORWALK, Conn. — It’s shocking, Norwalk Superintendent of Schools Steven Adamowski said Tuesday, agreeing with Board of Education member Mike Barbis.
“Our grant in its current form tests the limits of the letter of law and may miss some of the intent,” Adamowski said about the district’s use of state Alliance funds. “I think that it may be a product of some of the past budget cuts where things were shifted from the general budget to special funds. This is not something we can do anything about this year without laying people off, so I am not recommending any changes.”
The Board voted unanimously to approve the 2015 consolidated Alliance and Priority School funds district application without much comment.
The nearly $1.5 million grant requires Board approval, but there is no record that last year’s grant went through that process, Adamowski said.
“I read through this whole thing,” Barbis said. “I was kind of shocked at some of the stuff that is in here. I am sure I have never seen this before.”
“This is one of our biggest levers in our objectives and goals of the strategic operating plan,” Adamowski said. “We need to use it as such. Not doing so ties our hands behind our backs. We can talk all we want about providing interventions that students need. You don’t provide it unless you invest in it and this is the vehicle in the 30 Alliance districts for doing that.”
“The Alliance District program is a unique and targeted investment in Connecticut’s 30 lowest-performing districts,” the Connecticut Department of Education website states. “Connecticut General Statute Section 10-262u establishes a process for identifying Alliance Districts and allocating increased Education Cost Sharing (ECS) funding to support district strategies to dramatically increase student outcomes and close achievement gaps by pursuing bold and innovative reforms.”
Adamowski ticked off items that are being paid for with Alliance funds, some appropriately, some not so.
Eight curriculum and site instructional directors are paid for with the grant, Adamowski said, explaining, “This is one of the few expenditures in this grant that I could actually endorse.”
A “highly, highly unusual” expenditure is the funding of about 20 percent of the salaries of 48 kindergarten through third grade teachers, he said.
“We have a responsibility to fund every child in the district with a teacher, including kindergarten, including first grade, including second grade,” Adamowski said. “I am not sure where this came from, but apparently it has been for the life of the grant, which is three years now.”
Using Alliance funds to pay for first-grade aides is acceptable, as they presumably provide extra help and intervention, he said. Also acceptable is the funding of six middle school English language arts teachers, he said.
But spending $600,000 in Alliance grant money to pay for all the district’s security guards is not good, he said.
“I think the intent of the legislation is you might fund some over what you had, to create an additionally secure environment,” Adamowski said. “I am not sure they were intended to fund all of them with no local contribution.”
The worst allocation of funds is $675,000 to fund every staff member at Briggs, including the principal, he said.
“We cannot have a school that exists solely on special funds and grants,” Adamowski said. “One solution is to come up with $675,000 more, but a better solution is to allow the money to follow the child so when a student leaves Brien McMahon or Norwalk High School, their funds go with them. Right now we are paying for them twice.”
That would be the thing to focus on changing for the next school year, he said.
“As Mr. Barbis said, I read it and I was shocked,” Adamowski said. “I had the same reaction when I reviewed it for the first time. But again, it’s another piece of information and data for a policy board. It provides a direction around what we are going to do differently.”
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