Mayor concerned about communication issues

WINSTED — Mayor Candy Perez said this week that she is concerned about the Winsted school system, its budget and the fate of next year’s seventh- and eighth-grade classes, but that she and fellow selectmen may end up getting shut out of the decision-making process due to a lack of communication between boards.

Perez noted that a meeting regarding the possibility of moving the seventh and eighth grades to the town’s semi-private high school, The Gilbert School, took place Monday night at Gilbert, during the Board of Selectmen’s regularly scheduled meeting at Town Hall.

“Since August it has become clear that the chairman of the Board of Education does not believe the Board of Selectmen has a role in this,� Perez said, noting that school board Chairman Kathleen O’Brien has not been quick to comply with requests from selectmen in recent months.

At Monday night’s joint meeting between Winchester and Gilbert board members, the boards did not take action regarding the seventh and eighth grades, but did agree tentatively to set up a joint finance committee to review budget issues and possibly develop some creative solutions to ongoing fiscal problems.

Initially scheduled as a special meeting between the boards in Gilbert’s media center, the meeting was attended by more than 200 residents and moved to the school’s auditorium after  residents were notified by school officials that the boards would be discussing a possible transfer of grades.

Perez said she believes a number of issues need to be addressed before anyone decides to move grades around in Winsted’s school system.

“A big issue is seventh- and eighth-grade special education, which is in-house now but would be outsourced at the high school,� Perez said. “They’ve got to get that straightened out. Our special education population is about 20 percent in Winsted, compared to 10 percent in other towns.�

The Board of Selectmen discussed recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests Monday night with Town Attorney Kevin Nelligan, asking the attorney what legal avenues the board may pursue if information is not received. Detailed financial records were requested by selectmen from the school board last month under FOIA law, and O’Brien has said some of the information was either not available or did not exist prior to the request.

Selectmen also planned to send another letter to the state Board of Education, asking for further guidance in dealing with school budget issues.

Perez said she has asked the school board for enrollment numbers for the town’s public schools and has received no answer and that the numbers would be useful in determining the appropriate course of action for restructuring purposes. She also said she has received accurate financial and enrollment numbers from The Gilbert School and she is concerned that class sizes as small as four students are putting an economic strain on the town. “I would explore what options I could with holding some classes at the community college,� she said.

Perez said she expects Superintendent of Schools Blaise Salerno not to seek a contract renewal at the end of his current three-year term and that she hopes something can be worked out with The Gilbert School regarding shared administrative responsibilities. Winchester representation on Gilbert’s nine-member board is also an issue that needs to be addressed, Perez said. As it stands now, the board includes four town representatives — three from Winchester and one from Hartland — who are outweighed by the board’s hand-picked majority.

Perez said further restructuring could be done at the administrative level in the schools, but she’s not sure if and when various boards will be able to come to an agreement. “I would like the town to have one superintendent of schools. In a perfect world, we would have one K-12 system and everyone would be working together,� she said, “but I don’t think that’s going to happen.�

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