If the state Department of Motor Vehicles can cut Connecticut residents some slack after the mess caused by Hurricane Irene, why couldn’t state education officials?
That was the question Oxford’s interim superintendent, James Connelly, had Friday during a pre-school-year pep rally for teachers and staff at Oxford High School.
Connelly briefed teachers and staff about the district’s late start because of power outages and storm clean-up — and he named winners and losers in the storm response.
Among the picks for Connelly’s “hall of fame:” the Red Cross, the town’s fire department and police department, the facilities team and the Oxford School District central office staff that worked around the clock to get paychecks mailed out, even without power or Internet.
His “hall of shame?”
The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and the state Department of Education.
While the state DMV waived late fees and deadlines for car registrations during the storm, Connolly said the CIAC and the state Department of Education wouldn’t budge on some beginning-of-the-school-year regulations.
“All I can say is the Department of Motor Vehicles came through, and the state Department of Education went south on us,” Connelly said.
The Hall of Shame
Connelly said the State Department of Education was inflexible about the deadline for a financial report all districts have to file by Sept. 1.
If districts are late filing the report — called the ED001 — they get fined.
But without power or Internet access, it was hard for school officials to put the report together or get it sent out, Connelly said. Oxford ended up getting the report finished in time.
“They sent out a memo last Friday, saying you’d better get your ED001 in, and then the lights went out,” Connelly said.
The state Department of Education sent out an e‑mail to districts on Aug. 29 — after the power was out in most places — saying they couldn’t change the deadline, but would be willing to evaluate if the fees should be waived, according to a spokesperson for the department, Mark Linabury.
“I think given the circumstances, reasonability will prevail” in making decisions about fee waivers, Linabury said.
Athletic Practices
Connelly also called out the CIAC for its pre-season practice rules (see the video at the top of this story to hear his comments).
The CIAC requires teams hold 14 practices before the first game of the season. With power out and some fields damaged, districts have been asking for an exemption.
But the CIAC wouldn’t budge, Connelly said.
“They made a boneheaded decision that said the pre-season practices could not be canceled or postponed,” Connelly said.
“How can they say that?” Connelly asked. “When they made the decision, more than half a million people in the state were without power.”
The CIAC posted a response to the criticism on its website:
“The mandatory practice day requirement has been in existence for over 30 years and CIAC believes these days of practice are necessary to prepare teams for competition,” the statement said.
CIAC is letting Sunday practices count toward the 14. Previously, Sunday practices were allowed, but didn’t count toward the requirement.
Anyone without the 14 practices will have to postpone the first game.
Oxford met the requirement, Connelly said, but some schools have entire fields destroyed because of flooding and rain.
Many Thanks
Connelly’s presentation wasn’t all negative. He thanked the staff for pulling together to get the school year started.
“Probably the most important thing they did was they made payroll for you,” Connelly said. “And I can tell you on Monday, with the information we had, that was very doubtful. But we had some very creative people.”
Those people include Rosemary Hanson, the district’s director of business operations. She thanked several other central office workers who helped get payroll out without use of their computers.
“It took all these people to get payroll done,” Hanson said. “It united central office as a team.”
Connelly also thanked the staff that worked to open the Oxford High School as an emergency shelter for the town. It has been available to the public for showers and supplies since power went out.
Oxford High School regained power on Friday morning. It had been running on a generator throughout the week.
