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outlandish AWF Admin 
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Teen monument brewing friction Policy ponderedby Derby officials KATE RAMUNNI, Correspondent Connecticut Post DERBY — A policy regulating what memorials may be placed at city schools is being reviewed by the Board of Education. But the proposed policy will not allow the memorial stone Jill Garofalo plans to install at the high school in honor of her son, Tim, a 16-year-old sophomore who died in an ATV accident in March 2004. The board's Community Relations Committee met this week to formulate the policy that could go before the full board at a special meeting Thursday. Garofalo's plans called for installation of a slanted stone that is about 20 inches wide, 18 inches high and 10 inches deep. But the committee has agreed that memorials should be no more than 24 inches wide, 12 inches deep and flush to the ground. Those measurements were based on a memorial at Irving School for a student who died in 1989. That stone marker is more appropriate for a memorial, committee Chairman Martin Hubbard said. "We need to be sympathetic to [the family's] wishes," acting board Chairman Paul Varsinak said, "yet we have to have a stone that is aesthetically pleasing to the high school campus." The committee obtained sample memorial policies from the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, and based its proposed policy on it. Hubbard said he is especially sensitive to the needs of everyone involved in Garofalo's case. "I became emotionally attached to this project because I knew Tim personally," Hubbard said. "There is no way that any one of us here has any intentions to be unsympathetic — it is a tough situation to deal with." Garofalo said she can't comprehend why the committee does not want her stone used because she said it was school officials who arranged for the larger marker. After her son died, school officials contacted her to go look at a stone that was going to be provided for a memorial at cost, Garofalo said. She then had an image of her son in his football uniform placed on the stone, she said. "I did not have any choice in the size of the stone," Garofalo said. "This was the stone that was promised to me." To disallow that marker to be used as the memorial is wrong, Garofalo said. "You don't give a present and then take it back, especially in unfortunate circumstances such as mine — that is just not the way to treat someone who has gone through such a tragedy," she said. Garofalo is also upset that she wasn't notified of this week's committee meeting. "They promised me they would let me know when they would be talking about it," she said. Supt. of Schools Janet Robinson, a former school psychologist, said it is important for Tim's peers to have closure. "It is important that we don't romanticize death — it is important to grieve and move on," she said. "It is important not to dwell on, or encourage a fascination with death, which can be a real problem for teens." Garofalo said she believes the situation has gotten out of control. "It is a very simple thing and they didn't have to get involved," Garofalo said. "Now the board has blown this way out of proportion and something that was meant to be a beautiful thing is now very, very painful."
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