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NORWALK, Conn. Following impassioned remarks at a hearing in Hartford last week from Norwalk Board of Education Chair Jack Chiaramonte about state aid inequities, a petition to change the way the money is doled out is being written.
The petition is being started by the Norwalk Education Foundation. Its president, Lauren Rosato, said the change was long overdue.
I think its been brewing for many years because Norwalk has been on the low end of the funding, Rosato said.
Our demographics have changed since the Education Cost Sharing started, Rosato said. In the five years since she became president of the group, the poverty level in the schools has increased from 28 percent to 44 percent, she said.
The formula for ECS has been tweaked so many times that its not really a formula anymore, Rosato said.
The petition hasnt been completed yet. The foundation is writing it based upon a resolution passed by the Board of Education last week and hopes to get the wording approved by the end of this week.
Chiaramonte said he was pleased people in the community were being proactive in trying to change the state aid rules.
I think it will be one of the many tools needed to change the rules, he said. We have to demand to know why is our city being shortchanged and why are you messing with our childrens education?
On her Facebook page, state Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, posted a statement saying, Norwalk has 11,000 students and receives $10 million in education funding. Stamford has 15,000 students and receives $9 million. Yet Danbury has 10,000 students and receives $24 million, Meriden has 9,000 students and receives $55 million and West Haven has 7,000 students and receives $42 million. These are all school systems with the same demographics and children living in poverty.
What that means for Norwalk is that the state provides $956 per student, Chiaramonte said. They really stuck it to us. And they need to do something about it.
Chiaramonte suggests a more equitable way of distributing the District Reference Group Hs nearly $242 million in state funds is to divide it by the number of students in the group, which is 71,153, and give each town that base number per student. He estimated it equaling about $3,400 per student, which would give Norwalk about $37 million in state aid.
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