Mayors and school superintendents from Connecticut’s largest cities gathered Monday morning in Hartford to tell the state legislature they need more funding to cover the rising cost of educating students.
At a joint news conference, city leaders from New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport, Waterbury and Stamford said the state’s school districts need $545 million more in the coming year to serve students. That funding is distributed via the state’s “Education Cost Sharing” formula, which calculates per-pupil need based on various characteristics in each district — and it would come on top of approximately $2.36 billion the state currently distributes annually.
Of the $545 million, nearly half would land in the state’s five largest school districts. The superintendents and mayors said that’s because their cities educate some of the largest numbers of high-need students across the state, which include students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, are multilingual learners, have a disability or are experiencing homelessness…