Operations committee refers student trips, curriculum purchases and instructional contracts to full board

The Bridgeport School District operations committee on the evening under review referred a slate of student field trips and several instructional procurements to the full board for approval, approving each referral by voice vote.

The committee moved the Boston Debate League middle-school trip to Boston (March 2026) to the full board after a short presentation by Susan Barris, a seventh- and eighth-grade teacher at Discovery Magnet. Barris said eight students (four from Winthrop and four from Discovery) will travel by train for a two-day policy-style tournament on a topic the presenters identified as rare earth minerals. Committee members noted the debate team is covered in part by a grant; one member said the debating program is part of a $75,000 grant that pays related costs.

Committee members also referred three overnight outdoor-classroom trips presented by Discovery Magnet staff and other elementary/middle-grade teachers: an Ivoryton Outdoor Classroom trip in June 2026 (Romasi said 34 students would attend, with adult chaperones and on-site medical staff), a Washington, D.C., trip May 13–15, 2026 (Jennifer Brown said 38 students will travel by coach bus with 12 chaperones and eight parents), and March 30–April 1 trips for Luis Muñoz Marín and John Winthrop students. Each trip was moved, seconded and referred to the full board by voice vote.

On instructional purchases and renewals, the committee referred several items to the full board: a contract to replace high-school statistics textbooks and associated lab licenses (about $56,593 for roughly 225 student copies and nine instructor editions); a GoBook IEP development and progress-monitoring platform (presented as a $133,875 purchase covering access through June 30, 2027 and funded with a seed grant); two Cengage procurements (a K–8 ESL resource quoted at about $303,853 for one year and a three-year LIFT high-school curricular renewal quoted at about $541,994); and a Learning A–Z renewal (approximately $26,000 per year) for multilingual learners. Presenters and committee members requested clearer line-item documentation and sample materials for Cengage before full-board consideration.

Several members pressed for clarity about funding sources and timing. On the GoBook platform, staff explained the purchase is being covered by this year’s seed grant funds (with $74,375 reportedly due in February) and that the full quoted amount covers service through June 2027; committee members asked staff to clarify the payment schedule and confirm that the current seed grant is being used rather than obligating future grant funds.

The committee recorded these referrals as routine committee-to-board actions; all motions were approved by voice vote with no roll-call tallies recorded in the committee transcript. The items will appear on the full board agenda for final votes and any additional documentation requested by committee members.

Quotes from the meeting included Barris describing student preparation for the debate: "Our kids have been studying up on them" (rare earth minerals), and Jennifer Brown describing the D.C. itinerary: "We're taking a coach bus… we're visiting the African American Museum, Smithsonian, the Arlington Cemetery." The committee requested presenters provide clearer cost breakdowns and copies or samples of curricular materials for review at the full-board meeting.

Next steps: the items referred will be placed on the full Bridgeport School District board agenda for formal approval; staff were asked to provide clearer documentation on costs, grant sources, and sample materials where requested.