Board of Ed incumbent Brendan Hayes aims to keep New Canaan schools among the best
By Mike Dorfsman
Running for his third term on the New Canaan Board of Education, Brendan Hayes is looking forward to applying his commitment and experience toward keeping the town’s public schools among the best in the state and giving definition to what the Board is calling “Portrait of the Graduate.” about the education their children are receiving from the first days of kindergarten through high school graduation.
Having served as board chair and vice chair, Hayes brings a deep knowledge of the educational issues the board will be tackling, including the increasing demands on staffing and spacing as enrollment continues to grow and examining the Saxe Middle School schedule to make it as advantageous as possible for the students.
Attracting Top Notch Teachers
“We’ve been pretty fortunate in New Canaan in being able to attract really good teachers, it’s usually number one or two in terms of being the best places to teach in Connecticut,” he said. “Teachers come to New Canaan because they feel really supported by the administration, they get the right training and its ongoing so they can continue developing their skills and really help students on an individualized basis.”
Because they feel supported and valued, he said, the teaching staff is willing to commute long distances from their homes. “It’s really important to have the best administration we can have and have the best supports in place for teachers so they feel they’re really valued and can develop themselves in New Canaan.”
“Teachers come to New Canaan because they feel really supported by the administration, they get the right training and its ongoing so they can continue developing their skills and really help students on an individualized basis.”
The Middle School Experience
Based on his regular conversations with parents, the hardest years for students seem to be in the middle school years, the transition period from elementary to high school. “So we need to focus on making sure we have the best scheduling at Saxe,” he said, “not just to get more out of the day, but to address the challenges every kid goes through when they’re at those ages.”
“So we need to focus on making sure we have the best scheduling at Saxe, not just to get more out of the day, but to address the challenges every kid goes through when they’re at those ages”
Preparing Graduates for the World
Moving past middle school, the Board’s effort to define the Portrait of the Graduate aims to ensure that high school students leaving New Canaan High School have the skills to thrive and interact within the broader world they’ll be encountering beyond the town’s borders.
“They need skills they don’t necessarily get by growing up in New Canaan,” he said. “They might be the best math, history or English students, but if they can’t interact in their careers or socially with others who have different backgrounds that can be problematic. They need those skills in being able to interact socially with the range of people they’ll meet in their lives regardless of where they’re from and what their backgrounds are.”
In his career, Hayes is a senior managing director at an investment banking firm and has worked in finance for 20 years. He has an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business and has a BS in Mathematics and History from Tulane University. He and his wife, Ainsley, are the parents of three boys - a NCPS graduate, a New Canaan High School junior, and a 7th grader at Saxe.
