Students at two Meriden elementary schools be in class a little longer in the 2013-14 school year due to a new pilot program the city is partaking in that is intended to boost student achievement.
Communities in five states — Connecticut, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee — are taking part in the program, which will add 300 hours to some school districts in each of those states. In this state, Meriden is joining East Hartford and New London in the initiative.
Meriden Assistant Superintendent Tom Giard said that both Casimir Pulaski and John Barry elementary schools are the only two schools that will have extended hours.
Pulaski has already been running longer school hours this year, although under a different grant, Giard said.
No other schools in Meriden are part of the program.
The program is called Time (Time for Innovation Matters in Education), and it is a collaborative partnership between the nonprofit Ford Foundation and state and local governments — all of which are funding the program.
“Altogether, over 19,500 students are on track to benefit from an expanded school calendar starting in the 2013-2014 school year,” TIME listed on its website.
According to The Christian Science Monitor, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy hailed the program as “a natural outgrowth of an education reform law the state passed in May that included about $100 million in new funding, much of it to help the neediest schools."
Meriden was one of the 30 lowest-performing school districts in the state, garnering it more funding in 2012 from Malloy’s education reforms.
Check back with Meriden Patch tomorrow for a full story on the school district's decision.
Editor's Note: We incorrectly spelled John Barry School as John Berry School in a previous version of this article. This has since been corrected.
