Thursday evening the Board of Education convened with a new member roster, following November’s election of Gretchen Jeanes and Deb Low, and the re-election of Glenn Hemmerle. It was the first meeting since longtime chair Bruce Likly had termed out and Chris Stroup decided not to run again.
The meeting started off with operational business to conduct, namely the election of board officers. Christine Finkelstein, the former BOE vice-chair (who took on the role of chair for the final two months of the prior BOE) was officially elected BOE chair by her fellow board members. Laura Schwemm was chosen vice-chair, and Lory Rothstein was elected secretary.
The appointments were followed by public comment, during which members of the Wilton Education Foundation (WEF)–co-chair Brian Ladewig and WEF representative to the BOE Jim Kineon–presented a $10,000 donation to the board.
“This donation is to support professional development. We know, in working with [assistant superintendent] Chuck Smith, Andrea Leonardi and Kevin Smith, there are so many important priorities for the growth of our faculty and supporting their work. We’re excited to make this donation now, and look forward to making a matching donation in the spring, as well as funding the projects we know will be coming our way,” Ladewig said.
Ladewig reinforced that WEF’s community-based events are all oriented toward not only raising funds to support Wilton’s students and provide beyond the classroom experiences, but also to involving the community in the kinds of outreach they think are essential to connecting community, to schools and to kids.