Commissioner’s Roundtable on Family and Community Engagement

Patrice McCarthy Executive Director & General Counsel, CABE

At the recent meeting of the Commissioner’s Roundtable on Family and Community Engagement, the new legislation on age of school entry was discussed. Effective July 1, 2024, the birthday cutoff for children entering school is changed from January 1 to September 1. The legislation provides that a child who has not reached the age of 5 may be admitted upon a written request from a parent or guardian to the principal and following an assessment of the child to ensure that admitting such child is developmentally appropriate.

Attendees raised numerous questions related to implementation, including whether a district is required to provide a waiver process, whether there is an appeal from the principal’s decision, what staff resources will be required to conduct the assessments, and what guidance will be provided to parents to assist them in making a decision as to whether to request a waiver. Department staff committed to

Steimer Sr. Staff Associate for Professional Development and Communications, CABE

The CABE/CAPSS Convention Committee is excited to announce that Michael Bonner, a renowned leader, innovator, and performance booster, who is a trailblazer in leadership development and organizational culture, will be the Friday morning keynote speaker. He is a dynamic keynote speaker as seen on The Ellen Show, NBC Nightly News, and Time for Kids. He is the CEO of Bonnerville, a business that promotes the value of self-care and a highly respected team member at the famed Ron Clark Academy.

He empowers leaders to build genuine relationships and establish a positive organizational culture, vision and team development. His seminars challenge listeners to reflect, strategize, and execute in order to increase their

Among last year’s enacted laws, the state legislature created new rules regarding remote learning in Connecticut. As one aspect of those rules, “dual instruction” in remote learning was to be prohibited. This year, in Public Act 23-150, the legislature enacted some exceptions to that prohibition.

Although dual instruction is still generally prohibited, the two allowances for dual instruction are when it is necessary to effectuate a student’s individualized education program or Section 504 plan, or when the dual instruction is a part of an intradistrict or interdistrict cooperative learning program.

The cooperative learning programs will be discussed a bit more later in the article, but it is first worth mentioning that some education leaders may have heard similar exceptions before this year’s new law. And they would have heard right, as the exceptions took a bit of a winding road to being enshrined into law this year, and in their current form.

Two years ago, Public Act 21-46 stated that districts would be allowed to offer remote learning in grades 9-12 starting in the 2022-23 school year. And last year’s Public Act 22-80 allowed boards of education to offer a program of remote learning in grades K-12 starting with the 2024-25 school year. Public Act 22-80 also prohibited dual instruction, which it defined as “the simultaneous instruction by a