This meeting of the New Britain Common Council, held on May 13, 2026, began at 7:00 PM with public participation and continued with the regular agenda at 7:59 PM. Speakers advocated for education funding, specifically opposing cuts to the district coordinator of career pathways and community partnerships and to instructional coaching positions. The council approved numerous resolutions, including consent items, budget adjustments, and recognitions. A proposed appointment of Jamie B. Vaughn as Alderman for Ward 2 was tabled pending legal review.
Welcome to the May 13, 2026 regular meeting of the common council. It's now 7 p.m. We'll begin with public participation. And I just ask, I have a list I'll read from. Please remember to state your name and address for the record. Limit your speaking time to three minutes. And ask that you address your remarks to the chair, not the audience or individual members of the council. So let's begin. First name on the list is Chris Conan. Good evening. I'm Chris Conan. I'm a teacher at New Britain High School. I live at 188 Stanwood Drive in New Britain. I was here last week for the meeting, and I we didn't get a chance to speak. So I wanted to come and defend the uh proposed budget cuts for the education that we're seeing right now. Right now I'm specific, I don't think anybody should be losing their job, but right now I'm going to be defending the district coordinator of career pathways and community partnerships, which is currently held by Sandra Sanford. Dr. Gasper uses the expression uh building the beacon. I don't know if you've heard that before, but when I was putting this speech together, it really solidified the meeting for me because nobody has done more for our academies and our pathways at the high school than Sandra Sanford. We're nationally recognized by the National Economies Foundation with a distinguished uh title. So what we're doing at the high school, and what has been happening is we're building classrooms to meet modern and industry standards, and we're connecting the students with many community partners and finding them internships, uh job shadows, going on field trips, having guest speakers come to the school. We have four academies at the high school. Uh, one is the public service academy, one is business and finance, we have health services and the Academy I'm in, which is the Manufacturing, Engineering, and Technology Academy. Um, I don't know if anybody was able to make it to the academy's graduation last night, but we had a hundred and ninety students graduate with distinction. If you do the math, that's around 30% of our graduating class. Um if you're talking numbers, that is a very significant number, but we still like it to be higher. Uh, the academies provide students with a vision and a goal for their future. Uh, I've spoken with students before, and I encourage you to do the same. Um, if you talk to people in this community, especially recent graduates, and ask them about the academies and their experience, I can almost guarantee you that they have positive things to say. And it made a big impact on their life and their future. Umother number I wanted to put out there is that just in the Met Academy alone, which is one of four academies, uh, Sandra Stanford is in the last few years reason raised over a million dollars to upgrade our facilities there, and that's outside of district funds. So that's grant funding and community partnerships. Um, that doesn't even count the middle schools, their shops. We have a health academy who's been upgraded. Um, in our public service classroom, we literally have an ambulance simulator, so not just a touchpad, but an actual ambulance is built inside the classroom so that the students can get hands-on experience with that before they choose and go into that career. So I just wanted to end with saying that even though this isn't a traditional student-facing position, it's still facing elimination. Um, but this impact that the position holds is massive, and it helps teachers also like myself to improve their instruction and actually offer real world experience. Um, there's still a lot to do. So uh without this position, I can almost I really believe that we're gonna flatline, and we're we're being visited by other schools to see how we're doing it. Um, and then eventually we'll drop. So we have to keep the momentum going, and I appreciate that. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Chris. Our next speaker, excuse me, is Christina Haupt. Did I say that right, Christine? Good evening, members of the council. Um, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm here with my math instructional coach team, but I will speak on um mine and their behalf as well. My name is Christina Hott. I live at 303 D.