Dear Parents, Guardians, Staff, and Community Members:

Parent University - March 23, 2022 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM in BHS Cafeteria 

Our next session is entitled:  Mental Health and Well Being, Building Resiliency.  This session is focused on learning about mental health needs and warning signs as well as healthy coping strategies to use when dealing with your child’s everyday stressors such as developing one’s identity, school expectations, and overcoming adversity.  By understanding and supporting these strategies, you can prepare your child to better manage life’s challenging situations. We hope to see you there! 

School Lunch Program 2022-2023

As you know, we have been blessed that the Federal government has provided free breakfast and lunch to our students over the last two years.  We wanted to provide you with an update on the status of the 2022-2023 school year.  It is our understanding that there has not been any extension of the funding and the program will likely expire at the end of this school year.  What that means is that we will need to resume charging for breakfast and lunch starting in the Fall of 2022.  It is anticipated that the Board of Education will set new lunch and breakfast charges this Spring.  In addition, we will continue to provide free and reduced lunch for those eligible families.  Information for that program can be found at this link.  If anything changes, we will certainly communicate with you but wanted to remind you about the adjustment for the coming school year. 

Bell Schedule 2022-2023 

We can all agree that this school year has been a challenge with traffic.  The increased traffic was certainly related to COVID but also related to our increased enrollment.  The combining of the Bethel Middle School and Bethel High School bus runs have been the most challenging in terms of traffic congestion.   We were lucky,  this year,  to have an additional police officer provided to us to manage the traffic, but the funding will not be available next year.  Therefore, the district is considering going back to the three (3) tier structure for the 2022-2023 school year.  Once we have more information, we will communicate it to you, but want to alert you to the potential change.

Parent Communication Survey Feedback

Thank you for all the feedback given through the recent parent communications survey.  We have incorporated the feedback into our district newsletter.  Would you like to take a very brief survey regarding the new newsletter format?  District Newsletter Feedback Survey.

Public Hearing on the Budget 

The Board of Finance approved a proposed budget to bring forward to the taxpayers for comment. The proposed budget (for the schools and town) is a total of $85,500,111, representing an estimated tax increase of 1.1% over last year's budget.  On the average home in Bethel, the tax increase is estimated to be $82.21 a year or $6.85 a month.  The public will have an opportunity to comment on the proposed town and school budget at the Public Hearing on Monday, March 21, 2021, at 7:00 PM in the Bethel Middle School Auditorium.  If you are unable to attend the session in person and would like to provide a comment, you can email the Board of Selectman and Board of Finance at craigd@bethel-ct.gov.  Please be sure to include your name and street address in the email.