By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — The Staples High School Class of 2025 won’t start their senior year until next Tuesday, Aug. 27, but their graduation date has been set.

With six members present, the Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday to designate Wednesday, June 11, the date for next year’s graduation ceremony, with a rain date of June 12.

Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice told the board at its first meeting of the 2024-25 school year that a legislative change allowing districts to name a graduation date as long as it is scheduled for the 180th day of school has proved popular.

That means graduation can occur on that date, even if class cancellations caused by weather or other reasons extend the school year for the rest of the student body to make up for lost instruction time.

“This allows schools, families and communities the opportunity to plan appropriately, for the graduation day,” said Scarice. This will be the second year the board has locked in the date before the last day of academic year is known for certain.

State law requires a 180-day school year. In Westport, there are 182 class days for students with June 12 currently penciled in as the last day. Up to five snow days would push the end of the year to June 20.

There were no public comments, but the few students and parents in the audience gave the decision a thumbs up.

Diving board, coach stipend gifts

The school board also accepted two gifts during the meeting.

One was a $13,946 gift from the Staples High School Girls Swimming and Diving Booster Club to cover the purchase and installation of a second diving board and to shift the location of the existing diving board system at the Staples pool.

Several members of the swim team, their hair still wet from practice, were in attendance.

Athletic Director V.J. Sarullo said the diving board would benefit not only the girls team, but the boys team during winter.

This fall, there are 12 members of the girls dive team.

The second gift to support nine fall coaching stipends amounts to $35,675.50.

Sarullo said the stipends provide additional coaches for football, boys soccer and girls volleyball teams, who help ensure the safety and proper supervision because of high participation rates.

Last fall, there were 275 boys and 254 girls participating in Staples athletic programs, and the student-to-coach ratio for both genders was similar.

Budget surpluses reported

In other action, the school board cleared the way to apply a $96,778 surplus from building rentals during the last school year to its general fund electricity account. 

Rentals in 2023-24 brought in $151,920 and $55,142 was spent. Under a long-standing memorandum of understanding with the Board of Finance, the school board can apply the rest to utilities.

The school district also closed the 2023-24 fiscal year with an overall $619,317 surplus. It was budgeted to spend $136,287,715.

Elio Longo, the district’s chief financial officer, also reported that during the summer the facilities department completed 53 projects at the town’s schools and is working to close out 10 more.

Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association.