Week in Review: February 27-March 5

Schools

After crunching some numbers on Monday night, the Board of Education the following night approved its budget for the 2011-2012 school year. In a unanimous vote, the board a $229,614,948 budget—a 2.79 percent increase—with 1,918.1 staff positions. The district received new figures from the city the week before that added $2 million to the budget through savings in pensions, retirement, and post-employment benefits. The found money allowed Starr to add back some positions, which included special ed and social work.

Also, New Canaan High School principal Tony Pavia, who recently announced that he would be leaving his position at the end of the 2010-2011 school year, as principal at . He made the announcement via a letter sent to parents and students.

Business

Metro-North made its long-awaited debut of an M-8 car on the New Haven line Tuesday morning. A train of six left Stamford at 10:30 a.m. bound for Grand Central Station, where it arrived at 11:46 a.m. The first M8s, built by Kawasaki, were delivered to the railroad roughly a year behind schedule in December 2009 and have been in testing since. Commuters gave Fairfield Patch editor Andrew Brophy of the new cars later in the week, which were mostly positive.

Stamford Patch also gave you a of what was in store for 's Maple Sugar Sunday. We caught up with education director WIll Kies as he was cooking up some maple syrup as demo for students at Rogers Elementary.

Government

Patch readers across Fairfield County expressed their strong opinions about : a proposed bill that allow children of undocumented immigrant aliens to qualify for in-state tuition.

"Assuming that the illegal immigrant parents don't file income taxes, shouldn't they be forced to pay the out of state tuition rate?" one reader wrote.

"I would rather have kids educated and then tax paying citizens who contribute to society rather than someone who is unemployed and uses city services," another reader wrote.

New on Stamford Patch

This week, we debuted a new column called "," will track real estate market activity (property transfers, Sunday open houses, etc,) in Stamford every Thursday. Teasha Bivins, owner/broker of Bivins Realty Group, LLC, will be handling this column and wants to hear from you! Email her at teasha@bivinsrealtygroup.com.