Ledyard — The Board of Education heard a budget presentation on Wednesday that included the full budget request from each school, delaying a step in which Superintendent Cathy Patterson makes recommendations for cuts before presenting to the board.  

Chair Mimi-Peck Llewyllen described the change as a way to overcome the tight budget schedule the board encountered last year and a way to hear the full scope of budgetary needs in the district.

"I believe the whole board agreed they wanted to see every aspect of the presented budget, understanding that had been the administration recommendations as well as (Superintendent Patterson's) own for a competitive school district," Llewyllen said.  

The $32,447,204 budget, presented by Patterson and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Byars, represented a 6.1 percent increase over the 2015-16 budget.

The increase represents requests for three additional elementary school teachers at Gales Ferry/Juliet Long School and one additional teacher at Gallup Hill School, three additional math interventionists in the elementary schools and one additional districtwide social worker.

Byars said that kindergarten and first-grade classes at Gales Ferry/Juliet Long — averaging 22 and 23 students respectively — came as a surprise at the beginning of the year, and bucked the declining enrollment predictions by consultant Dr. Peter Prowda.

Additionally, the district's performance in their first year of Smarter Balanced Testing showed that elementary students performed, on average, worse on the math test than they did on the language arts section.

Byars said they were expecting more rigorous standards as part of the Common Core, and lower math scores were a trend statewide, but in some cases the difference was more pronounced with Ledyard elementary students.

The presentation was framed by both Patterson and Byars as a budget that would meet the needs of the current student population, but also to invest in programs that would make Ledyard an attractive district for students from Ledyard and beyond considering a number of schools in the area.

"In the next 20 years, the concept of regionally competitive and the concept of choice are interwoven," Patterson said.

She emphasized that parents often look at a school's program of studies to gauge whether their child should attend, and that administrators met several times to maintain the curriculum requirements without adding additional courses.

At a previous Finance Committee meeting, Chair Michael Brawner endorsed the idea of hearing the full budget presentation, stating that the Board of Education "has the time" to review the full budget request and make changes before it must submit it to the Town Council on March 7.

The Board of Education approved a schedule at its Wednesday meeting for the budget process that includes a public hearing on Feb. 10, as well as a discussion and vote on any changes recommended in the public hearing on Feb. 17.

n.lynch@theday.com

Twitter: @_nathanlynch