Norwalk BOE: A contract here, a contract there

NORWALK, Conn. – The company behind driver’s education at Norwalk and Brien McMahon high schools will be making its presence felt in a more visible way in the coming school year.

That’s one result of the actions taken Tuesday by the Norwalk Board of Education. Also, surveillance cameras will be mounted on some Norwalk school buses before the beginning of the next school year. In other news, the board is working on a social media policy.

Seeking an extension of their one-year contract Tuesday night, representatives of All-Star Driver made their pitch: In an effort to interest more students, the company will cheer on the drama clubs and the football teams and buy more ads in sports programs.

They acknowledged that the program has had a slow start. This year, 61 teens took the class, 28 at Brien McMahon and 33 at Norwalk High, they said. The goal is to educate 350 new drivers.

The contract extension was approved unanimously.

A social media policy that has “a little more precision than we have now” is being drafted by the policy committee, board member Steven Colarossi said. A policy used by the city of Arlington, Mass., is favored by the committee over a policy recommended by the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE), he said.

The committee also plans to discuss special education policies.

The school bus surveillance cameras were discussed at the previous board meeting. They won’t be there to monitor the kids – they will be installed on the outside of school buses to catch people illegally passing. As previously reported, StudentGuardian will take a percentage of the $450 citation issued to drivers for passing a school bus.There is no up-front cost to the city for the system.

The multi-camera system will be installed on buses traveling problematic routes.

The new cameras involved amending the contract with the bu company, First Student. The motion was approved unanimously.