School Starts This Monday
By Chris Seymour | Correspondent at August 25, 2023 | 2:15 pm | Print
With the new school year just days away, New Britain schools have been gearing up for weeks to welcome approximately 10,000 students to the 2016-17 academic year.
School starts this coming Monday, Aug. 29 for all Consolidated School District of New Britain students and Superintendent Nancy Sarra is excited about beginning her first full school year at the helm.
“I am ready to get this show started; I am really, really excited for this school year,” said Sarra, who became superintendent in February. “We have been working hours and hours this summer—I have a great group of people here at central office who have really helped me restructure central office so that we can focus more on the students.”
A main focus for the district in 2016-17 will be “engagement” with various stakeholders, according to Sarra.
“Our focus this year is really on student engagement, staff engagement and family engagement; as I like to say, we are the best at getting better and we are working on ways to create a workplace of excellence for all staff and students,” she detailed.
In order to create that place of excellence, Sarra stressed she needs parents and guardians to ensure their kids are coming to school each day.
“I need parents to understand that having their students attend every single day is critical,” emphasized Sarra. “They have to be there and it is our responsibility to keep them engaged while they are there, but it is a partnership of them entrusting their kids to us for the full seven hours every day for 180 days.”
Asked what parents should know heading into the brand new school year, Sarra responded, “Their voice matters.”
She continued, “I need them in partnership with our teachers, with our leaders, with everyone in the community to help our students really develop these strong habits of mind and aspects of character—that is our focus—but we need the partnership from the family and community and when we are all working in concert we get the job done.”
New Britain schools “are poised for greatness,” emphasized Sarra, who was the district’s director of teaching and learning before being promoted to the top post earlier this year.
“We have a mayor who is super supportive of all of our work, we have board members who are right behind me and beside me, which is critical; there is just a very good energy in New Britain right now to get this job done,” said Sarra.
While she is more than ready to lead the way, Sarra underscored education is a team effort. “You don’t do it alone and I really want to think that I am a servant leader and I am here to work alongside every staff member,” she said.
“It’s about building relationships—teacher to teacher, teacher to student, custodian to secretary to teacher, all the way through,” she added. “Our focus is going to be on making students want to wake up in the morning and come to school and having our staff want to come to work each day because they are allowed to teach and learn and grow alongside the kids.”
Sarra is also excited to have new leadership at New Britain High in the form of Principal Joseph Pinchera.
“Our goal is student achievement always and that is student achievement for the whole child—not just academics, but the whole child development, and he has built a great team around him because we know we can’t do it alone,” said Sarra of Pinchera.
With school stating Monday, bus routes, menus and a variety of other information is available on the district’s website. “We hired a transportation manager about six months ago who has been doing an amazing job to ensure a successful first day for all 10,000 of our kids,” said Sarra.
For bus routes, food service menus and all of the latest information on the first day of school, please visit www.csdnb.org.
