All-Day Kindergarten Starts Strong, Says Superintendent

Tropical Storm Irene delayed this year’s opening day for the East Haven Public Schools four days, but otherwise the school opening went well, School Supt. Anthony Serio reported Tuesday to the Board of Education.

Serio said he was especially concerned that the opening of all-day kindergarten would take place smoothly, which it did.

The superintendent said he personally visited all of the district’s schools and was very happy that opening day went so well, especially for the kindergartners. The school day for kindergarteners was expanded this year.

"There were a few cryers, but not many," Serio said, to which an educator in the audience for the Board of Education meeting jokingly interjected that those were mostly the teachers.

He was especially pleased at how well the kindergartners adapted to getting lunch together at their school cafeterias.

"It was a pleasurable day to see the start up of these new kindergartens," he said.

There were a few "glitches" with school buses, Serio said, and the start of all-day kindergarten contributed a bit to that. But those problems were corrected on the first day and did not reoccur, he said.

Serio also reported to the board on how the schools pitched in to help during Tropical Storm Irene.

East Haven was probably the hardest hit community in the entire state by the storm, which was downgraded from a Category 1 hurricane just before it made landfall.

"It’s the worst devastation I’ve ever seen hit East Haven in my lifetime," he said.

School officials helped open the emergency shelter at East Haven High School on the eve of the storm. With the help of East Haven Fire Department and the American Red Cross the emergency shelter was ready to accept evacuees on Saturday, Aug. 27, as the tempest loomed.

About 60 people took refuge at East Haven High School. School employees and the Fire Department Explorers youth group members were among the volunteers who served takeout pizza to the evacuees on Saturday night.

In the aftermath of the storm, school cafeteria workers prepared 200 box lunches to distribute to residents along Cosey Beach Avenue, where dozens of shorefront beach houses were destroyed or severely damaged and many residents lost everything.

Momauguin School, located on Cosey Beach Avenue, held a pasta dinner for shoreline residents busy cleaning up from the storm.

But neither Momauguin School or D.C. Moore School, also located near the shoreline area, were damaged by the tropical storm’s flooding or winds, and Overbrook School was the only school that lost power.

School board member Tia DePalma, who lives in the Cosey Beach area, said she heard many positive comments from shoreline residents about the public schools after the storm.

Board member Laura Kluth asked Serio if there were any way to ask the state to grant a waiver for the school days lost due to the storm. The first day of school was scheduled for Sept. 1, but it was held on Sept. 6 instead.

Serio said that would be a decision that the state Commissioner of Education would have to make, and the governor has the final say.