The Board of Education officially welcomed and congratulated Andre Hauser, the newly-appointed principal of CRHS, during their June 9 regular meeting held at the Memorial Middle School library. The process of selecting a new principal started several months ago with over 25 applicants.

Hoping it will be enough to pass the 2010-11 proposed education budget at the next referendum, the District 13 Board of Education (BOE) voted to cut $133,729 from their original proposal. This leaves a gross budget of $34.7 million, or a 2.77 percent increase over the current year.

District 13 Superintendent Susan Viccaro introduced the 2010-2011 proposed education budget on Wednesday, March 3. This year’s projected increase of 2.88 percent, combined with last year’s increase of 0.58 percent, yields an average increase over the last two years of 1.73 percent, said Viccaro.

The number of voters went up and the margin slimmed down a bit, but the end result of today's referendum on the District 13 education budget was again a "no" from voters. This time around, 964 people voted for the budget whil 1,017 voted against.

At the May 27 Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Susan Viccaro said Regional District 13 will be receiving somewhere in the neighborhood of $440,000 in stimulus money to be used toward special education.

By a margin of 112, voters in District 13 defeated the proposed $31.8 million net budget for 2009-2010. That budget represented a 2.42 percent increase over the current year's budget. The votes by town presented the picture seen most frequently in the last several years. Durham passed the budget by a razor thin margin, 578-570, while Middlefield defeated it, 267-387.

A confirmed case of swine flu, or H1N1 flu, in a Middlefield child is big news for a small town. Big enough for major news networks and print media to attend a community-wide forum on the topic with representatives from the Connecticut Department of Health (DPH), Board of Education, personnel from the school district and town health officials.

Though the regular meeting of the Board of Education on April 29 began with a discussion of swine, or N1H1, flu, it soon moved on to other topics. (See other web postings for flu discussions.)

The Board of Education voted last week on one new policy and two changes to existing policies that essentially bring the district in line with state mandates.

Policy number 3280, regarding gifts and memorials, now states that the school board will need to approve anything given to the district over $5,000.

The Board of Education cut the bottom line of the 2008 school budget by more than $175,000 on Wednesday night, March 26, bringing the total percentage increase to just under five percent.