The public portion of Tolland school district’s strategic planning process was officially kicked off last night.  The purpose of this meeting was to hear from residents.  The process is being facilitated by New England School Development Council (NESDEC).  Tolland’s facilitators are Dr. Donald Kennedy and Margery Clark.  Between now and January, NESDEC will collect additional information from residents.  A great way to get involved is to complete the attached survey.  Information on how to submit your thoughts are included within.

A great way to get involved is to complete the attached survey. 

There were just over 40 people in attendance at this meeting at the high school.  Many of those who spoke identified themselves as parents and town leaders.  The meeting agenda was as follows:

1. Welcome – Dr. William Guzman, Superintendent of Schools
2. Introductory Slides
   Presenters from New England School Development Council (NESDEC) -
   Dr. Donald Kennedy and Margery Clark, including explanation of DRAFT Survey
3. “Elevator Speech” Exercise
   You meet a family new to Tolland on an elevator. They ask you “What are the
   successes/strengths of the Tolland Public Schools?” As the available time is short, you
   have time only to indicate the headlines. What do you include in your “Elevator
   Speech?” – Marge Clark
4. Walking through some of the topics in the DRAFT survey. Comments from the
   audience – Marge Clark, scribe; Don Kennedy, facilitator
5. Wrap-up – Don Kennedy

Click here for the survey.  Thanks for giving your input!  For more detailed information, follow this link to the Tolland Patch

We asked the this year’s candidates for Board of Education and The Town Council:

“With respect to Tolland schools, what must we be sure to preserve and what must we strive to enhance in the years to come?”

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Note:  responses are in order received:

Jan Rubino, Democratic, Town Council

The budget process has to begin with discussions between the Town Manager/Council and the Superintendent of Schools/BOE to understand the needs of each and to hammer out a mutually defensible budget. Yes, there are economic challenges, but we must all keep in mind the significance of our Educational system and how it supports the value of our homes and property. We must also keep in mind that our borrowing capacity is judged in part by our ability to pass a budget. I would like to see a public budget hearing, joint representation, that would include both budget presentations, not separate times and/or venues. That is the only way to keep the process transparent.

Jan Rubino

Rick Field, Democratic, Town Council

As a candidate for Town Council and not BOE I do not have the facts for those decisions. The council needs to understand and support BOE strategies (they are the experts) and present a budget that reflects needs and is able to pass referendum. I think one of the things the Council can do, is through insightful and supportive questions, help the BOE arrive at a budget that is made as transparently and with the same rigor the Town budget is deliberated that will stand up to the scrutiny of everyone.

Rick Field

Josh Freeman, Democratic, Town Council

As a candidate for Town Council, I am not running for an office which will have direct budgetary control or management of the Tolland schools. That said, I believe that a strong working relationship and trust between the Town Council/Town Manager and the BOE/Superintendent is paramount to the school’s success. Collaboration must be a priority for the school district to be properly funded and supported. I moved to Tolland for a large part because of past investments made in the school system and the stellar reputation of the school system. My property value is affected by the town’s continued investment in that successful system (not to mention my daughters future success) and this point needs to be better utilized to show value in this continued investment. While I am sure efficiencies can be found, I trust that the BOE is faithfully looking for savings where possible but do not believe efficiencies alone are how we build a healthy and sustainable school district. My commitment as a Town Councilman is to support the schools, but my requirement is that open communication and collaboration improve between the Council and BOE. We need to stand together, work to get town budgets passed (become better salespeople), and trust each other to do our part in the process for which we are assigned. We can not afford to point fingers at each other, we need to be unified in our success or failures to properly fund the schools and we need work as a team in these hard financial times to figure out solutions to the challenges we will face in funding the district properly.

Josh Freeman

Craig Nussbaum, Democratic, Town Council

I am the sole Town Council incumbent endorsed by the democratic party, and father of 3 children in our schools. I have fought tirelessly for the children of this community over the past 2 years and will continue to do so. Sending a budget to referendum which gives education a fighting chance has been a priority. Unfortunately, the voters decided otherwise 2 years in a row. Nevertheless, the Council must continue to send a budget to referendum which lets the residents decide if they want to fund education at a level which our children deserve. I would be grateful for your support on Tuesday.

Craig Nussbaum

Karen Bresciano, Democratic, Board of Education

This is such a challenging question after years of erosion. Every year we think we are at bare bones and every year we are required to make more cuts. We all recognize the critical value of many things that we have had to cut like anti-bullying/social skills programs, languages in the earlier schools, more affordable pay to participate fees, instructional time in specials, updated books and workbooks. Really, the list is endless. Before those cuts were made, each of them would have been considered unthinkable. At this point, we are obviously going to do our best to keep the core curriculum intact, but I hope we can communicate to our voters the importance, not to just our kids, but to the whole community, of keeping programs and activities that teach social skills, leadership, cooperation, and compassion.

I hope to work on enhancing the experiential learning and enrichment activities which can enhance the education of students at every level.

Karen L. Bresciano

Bob Pagoni, Democratic, Board of Education

I concur with Karen’s assessment. I told the FTS and the Democratic Town Committee that the BOE is running a triage. We continuously are forced to decide what is going to be cut each year. That is the plain and simple reality. We have never had level services year to year provided to the students of Tolland in my 8 years on the Board. What is the BOE going to do different this year? Nothing. We are going to squeeze every penny for what it is worth and try to maintain the grades, scores and quality of the experience. Due to the Teacher’s salary increase coming next year, mark my words, the town hasn’t seen a budget problem this big yet. I’m not trying to be a Donnie Downer on this. Just like Joe Friday used to say on Dragnet, “Just the facts M’am.”

Bob Pagoni

Patricia Hollay Luetjen, Democratic, Board of Education

With respect to Tolland schools we must be sure to systematically identify and preserve the highest quality educators and have the most successful and beloved teachers, staff and administrators serve as mentors. We must strive to enhance the union contract negotiation process so that acheiving educational objectives can become the primary focus of the board and the Superintendent.

Patricia Hollay Luetjen

Town Council, Republican Candidates

We, the Republican Town Council slate, are committed to a strong, sustainable, education system in Tolland. We will support (and in some cases lead) in searching out ways for our town and our school system to improve efficiency & technology to drive down costs in how we deliver services. We will review all areas of our town in search of ways to improve quality and efficiency with an eye toward bending down the cost curve.

We are also committed to halting the trend of our town’s ever increasing mill rate. We believe we can accomplish both of these key principles. We understand that there are areas within our town budget that require more investment and we are determined to insure that those resources are available. We will look to finding ways to increase our tax base and drive down our operating costs to insure that our Education System remains both Strong & Sustainable for many years to come. Working together I am confident we will succeed.

Please feel free to visit our website at www.tollandrepublicans.com to learn more. We look forward to working with the new BOE. Thank you for reading this and we hope to have your support on November 8th and in the years to come. Vote Republican because we are committed to a strong, sustainable education system and we will always put Tolland Citizen’s First!

Sam Belsito
Mark Gill
Jack Scavone
Ben Stanford

Board of Education, Republican Candidates

Beyond the mandated requirements for all towns in Connecticut, Tolland must be prepared to maintain our existing level of curriculum. Historically, Tolland residents have expected our educational system to be better than what is “mandated” by the State. For many of us, it was the education system that attracted us to Tolland. The current reality is that any reduction in services from this point on will result in a decline in our capabilities to prepare our students for the increasingly competitive college acceptance process and workforce environment. The specific areas of enhancement need to include: extension of gifted/talented programs for students who’s abilities are not being extended, strategic investment in technology for curriculum delivery and disaster recovery for the District and the Town and constructive involvement with all of our community members to help us find ways of providing educational resources and opportunities in a more cost effective fashion.

Your thoughts and comments would be greatly appreciated…

Andy Powell
Frank Tantillo
Christine Howard
Althea Gill
Karen Kramer
Steve Clark

John Olynyk  Democratic, Town Council

As has been noted by others, as a candidate for town council I encourage the BoE to provide the budgetary details so that as a team we can have some educated discussions of the choices and trade-offs involved our decisions about the items that end up on the final budget proposal. While council does not have a “line item veto” authority I believe that an open and transparent budgetary process will help the taxpayers of Tolland understand those choices as well. Finally, I believe we need to do a better job of helping taxpayers on both sides of the issues understand the value added by a robust, high-performing school system, even for those who don’t have children in the system.

John Olynyk

MaryAnn Delaney Tuttle

If re-elected, I will work to ensure that the children of Tolland have available the quality of education that all children deserve.

MaryAnn Delaney Tuttle