Celebrating a recent decision

Editor:

Recently I faced the toughest decision in my time on the BOE as we voted on the future of our high schools. Combining our high schools is best for students, and I am grateful that we voted for it after years of study. Thank you to everyone involved for their dedication in long meetings and extensive research.

I enjoyed hearing the input from our stakeholders who filled out the feedback form, came to the public forum, spoke during our meetings, and emailed us. I read hundreds of pieces of feedback and took into account every idea raised, both for and against merge. Much of the feedback was thought-provoking and prompted me to do extensive research beyond what I had already done.

Our hardworking staff will continue to find ways to build relationships with our student body regardless of school size. Research shows that both larger and smaller schools can be successful in building relationships to support students’ mental health and social/emotional development. We are currently providing more mental health support staff per student than the state average and recommendation, and I will work diligently to ensure we continue to have a lot of support in place for students in a larger high school.

Having all of our resources in one building will enable us to provide a better education. No longer will we have programs only offered at one school, and we will be able to run a wider variety of classes than we do currently. Having more students will also provide us with opportunities to offer more sports teams, do more school plays, etc.

My guiding principles are, always have been, and always will continue to be two things: Students first ALWAYS and constituent feedback. I am very excited to see what the future holds for our district.

Rajan Doering, Wallingford

Editor:

When are they going to dredge and restore Hanover Pond and its tributaries which is turning into Hanover Marsh which eventually will become Hanover Swamp?

Al Kaiser, Meriden