MONROE, CT — Educators formed a diverse Ad Hoc Facilities Committee to study Monroe Public Schools’ space issues amid growing student enrollment and to come up with a recommendation for the Board of Education. Its meetings were posted and open to the public.
However, many Monroe Elementary School families felt “blindsided” by a Monroe Sun article on Feb. 13, which reported one option to discontinue use of their building as an elementary school.
“I think that the parents were really shocked and scared about what could happen to Monroe Elementary School,” said Liz Modugno, who has one child who graduated from the school, another one in fifth grade there, and a one-year-old she hopes will go to MES.
Since the article, parents made a big showing at the last committee meeting on Feb. 25, have communicated with local education leaders and taken to social media to become more involved in the process.
The Sun interviewed several parent last week. Among their criticism, some pointed out that committee meetings are not live streamed, that a parent from each school is not represented, and that they only learned about the MES option from their school after the article was published.
“Communication can always be improved,” Superintendent Joseph Kobza said Friday. “We’re not moving forward without input from everybody. This committee is not making any decisions in isolation. We value the feedback of everybody and want everyone’s input.”
He sent an email to families Friday, providing an update on the process and encouraging their involvement.
Kobza pointed out how the committee will only advise the Board of Education, which will have to make a decision, then there is the town approval process — all with public input along the way, before a plan ultimately goes to referendum to be voted on by the townspeople.
“At the end of the day, our goal is to do right by the kids,” he said.
“Between state grants and architectural plans, we’re not talking about any actual construction until about 2027,” Board of Education Chairman David Ferris told The Sun.
Amy Lachioma, an MES parent interviewed for this story, said, “I feel a little frustrated by that. It’s a misleading comment, because the grant application is in June. People need to voice their concerns now. I think people were just shocked because it came out of nowhere.”
Of the Feb. 25 meeting, Ferris said, “it was a good meeting. It was well attended by parents. I was happy to see people listening and getting the details and we’re back on the 13th.”
Though there was no public participation then, the chairman said there will be a session for the meeting on March 13, to be held in the Masuk High School media center at 6 p.m.
The committee is planning to create a townwide survey and residents will also be able to provide feedback through an email address.
“We want all residents’ feedback prior to any recommendations to the full board,” Ferris said.
Parents create own survey
Lachioma and Modugno, expressed their belief that parents should have been involved earlier in the process to have more influence over what the final options will be. Lachioma said the initial reaction to the news article was emotional, before many parents started to look at the situation logically.
To that end, Modugno and Lachioma created an online survey for parents, faculty and students from all of Monroe’s schools to anonymously share their opinions on how the town can best handle its school space needs. Over 400 people had participated by Friday.
Among the results, 82 percent of respondents want to keep MES as an elementary school.
The survey includes a comments section. Among the things most parents want the school board to know while grade configurations are looked at, is they believe fourth graders are not mature enough to be in middle school.
The survey is being shared on the Monroe CT Residents Facebook page and each school has been asked to post it on its PTO pages. Modugno and Lachioma expressed their hope people will be heard and become more educated about the issues.
“I feel it’s making people in the community feel closer and able to speak,” Modugno said. “I feel like people are better informed. People really didn’t have a clue of what was going on.”
She noted how Monroe’s school space issues go beyond MES.
“It calls for redistricting the entire town,” Modugno said. “This is not just a Monroe Elementary issue, this is all parents of kids in the system or entering the system.”
Modugno and Lachioma plan to share the survey results at this Monday’s Board of Education meeting, to be held in the Masuk media center at 7 p.m.
Liaisons
Maria Dualas, president of the Special Education Parent Teacher Association (SEPTA), wrote an email to Ferris and included SEPTA Vice President Heather Hoagland, Secretary Shayna Reynolds-White, Treasurer Wendy Orr and the Monroe Parent Council on the communication.
- Having a parent liaison for each school.
- A parent liaison for special education families
- Having one seat at all Facility Ad Hoc meetings to be rotated among parent liaisons
- Having a partnership between the Board of Education and the parent liaisons in creating the survey to be distributed at the March 13 Board of Education meeting.
- A partnership between the school board and parent liaisons for community outreach.
A neighborhood school
Monroe Elementary School parents rallied behind it after learning of the potential option to discontinue it as an elementary school.“As parents of students that love their experience and community that is Monroe Elementary, we are devastated to learn that closing the school is one of the final two options, especially when there are other possibilities that leave our community intact,” Jennifer Paniccia said in an email. “But more than that – we are shocked and disappointed that these conversations were going on without our knowledge or any public input from the families that will be directly impacted by our doors closing.”
“We believe that removing students from the school should be an absolute last resort,” she continued. “We value having a community where our class sizes are small. Our kids spend 7 hours at school each day, it’s their home away from home and they shouldn’t be uprooted from their environment where they are happy and comfortable.”
“My husband, Joseph, went there and my mother-in-law used to work in the cafeteria,” Lachioma said. “We moved to Monroe because of the schools and we stay here because of the schools.”
“The community around Monroe El is so strong,” Modugno said. “We live very close to the school. Neighborhood kids take their bikes to and from school. We saved money for a bike rack.”
She said it would be difficult for kids to acclimate to a larger school further away, bus rides would be longer and morning traffic could be a problem at the larger schools.
Michele Kekac is the mother of a fifth and a second grader at Monroe Elementary.
“This will not affect our family, because by the time the construction is in place, my son will be in middle school,” she said. “However, I want to speak up and help, because I know this is not the right decision for the town.”
Kekac expressed her belief that it would be easier to move central office out of the building, opening up more space for students of Monroe Elementary School.
The Kekacs moved to town in November 2023 and their experience with MES made them care enough to want it to be there for future families.
“I think it would be extremely disruptive to move so many young children,” Kekac said. “It would completely disturb the children and the school community. Why are we considering this option?”
All respectful comments with the commenter’s first and last name are welcome.
The Monroe Sun,
I would like to share with you my reply to the e-mail from our SEPTA/PTO organizations on 2/26:
Thank you for the feedback. I was pleased with the turnout of parents at Tuesday nights ad hoc committee meeting. I’m glad so many people were there to hear first hand the discussion and to see the factual information presented. I really need all of your help to get out the correct information on this topic and even more importantly, the budget for next year.
The Board has been discussing the facility study and subsequent ad hoc committee at our meetings since the fall of 2023. All of our meetings are held in public, agenda’s are published in advance, meetings are streamed live, and also recorded for later viewing via the district website. The superintendent has discussed the facility issue numerous times with his administrative staff over the last year, and principals have participated in feedback with the superintendent on the options being considered by the ad hoc committee. Ad hoc committee meetings are also held in public, agenda’s published in advance, and have been reported on by The Monroe Sun. All facility study and ad hoc committee presentations and materials have been posted on our web site. The ad hoc committee is double the recommended size and includes parent representatives. The Board approved a 75.5 million budget for next year with ZERO public comment. This all being said, I’m sure you can understand my frustration when we are being criticized on social media for operating in secret.
I would love to see PTO representatives attend our regular BOE meetings and see further attendance by parents at the ad hoc committee meetings. So many great things are presented, discussed, and approved.
The members of the ad hoc committee have been set, but we will be in contact about a shared survey, to possibly expand on the one sent out today. That looks like a good start to gathering further feedback. The ad hoc committee agreed we are at the right time to gather in person feedback as well, so I will put time aside for public participation on our next agenda for 3/13. We also agreed to create a specific e-mail for people to send in feedback and will get that e-mail address out soon.
We will need your help with community outreach, especially concerning the budget for next year. I look forward to working with you all as well.
Thank you,
Dave
Chair, Monroe Board of Education