Norwalk Public Schools
| Norwalk, Connecticut Public School District |
|
|---|---|
| Type and location | |
| Grades | K-12 |
| Established | 1678 |
| Country | United States |
| Location | Southwestern Connecticut, Fairfield County |
| District Info | |
| Superintendent | Susan F. Marks |
| Budget | $133 million (2005-06) |
| Students and staff | |
| Students | 11000 |
| Athletic Conference | FCIAC |
| Other information | |
| Website | http://www.norwalkpublicschools.org/ |
Norwalk was granted a town charter by the Connecticut General Court in 1651. Later, on May 29 1678 town records mention the establishment of the community supported teaching activities with a passage that reads:
- At a town meeting... voted and agreed to hier a scole master to teach all the children in ye town to lerne to Rede and write; and that Mr. Cornish shall be hierd for that service and the townsmen are to hier him upon as reasonable terms as they can.
The school that was established in the 1670s was located near the Ludlow Square area of East Norwalk (that is, near the former Roger Ludlow Junior High School).
Recent Norwalk public school graduates have gone on to attend universities such as Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Harvard, MIT, New York University, and Wesleyan. The current superintendent of Norwalk Public Schools is Susan F. Marks, Ph.D.
In the 2005-06 fiscal year, the school system spent $26.7 million on special education services, nearly 20 percent of the total school budget.
The State Education Department announced on January 28, 2008 that Norwalk was one of twelve districts in the state that it would help to close student achievement gaps.
Read more about this topic: Nathan Hale Middle School
Famous quotes containing the words public schools, public and/or schools:
“There are obvious places in which government can narrow the chasm between haves and have-nots. One is the public schools, which have been seen as the great leveler, the authentic melting pot. That, today, is nonsense. In his scathing study of the nation’s public school system entitled “Savage Inequalities,” Jonathan Kozol made manifest the truth: that we have a system that discriminates against the poor in everything from class size to curriculum.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“President Lowell of Harvard appealed to students ‘to prepare themselves for such services as the Governor may call upon them to render.’ Dean Greenough organized an ‘emergency committee,’ and Coach Fisher was reported by the press as having declared, ‘To hell with football if men are needed.’”
—For the State of Massachusetts, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Good schools are schools for the development of the whole child. They seek to help children develop to their maximum their social powers and their intellectual powers, their emotional capacities, their physical powers.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)