Introduction – Ever Upward

Ask school board members around New York State what their most pressing concern is and they will most likely say student achievement. Second, however, just might be managing costs that are largely beyond their control.

New York’s public schools are responsible for the education, health and welfare of nearly 2.7 million students every day. They have a duty to provide learning environments that allow all children to reach their full academic potential while keeping them safe, secure and healthy.

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FOR RELEASE:  May 7, 2008

The majority of school board members responding to a recent poll from the New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA) say this year’s record amount of state aid should be used to help reduce property tax increases.

On Board Online • Albany Update • April 28, 2008

The State Education Department (SED) recently conducted an extensive outreach effort to determine how the department could better “support student learning and school improvement.”

Methods included a written survey, consulting with groups such as NYSSBA, large group discussions that reached thousands of educators, and small group discussions that involved 400 SED staff members.

On Board Online • Albany Update • April 28, 2008

By Marc Humbert
Senior Writer

State officials are scouring the records of school districts, BOCES and local governments across the state in a crackdown on possible abuse of New York’s public pension system. Already, a handful of private attorneys who had been listed as fulltime school or BOCES employees have been booted from the state Employees Retirement System.

Citing what he said were “not simple misunderstandings, but repeated acts of fraud,” state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced April 10 that he was sending out subpoenas to lawyers and school districts across the state.

On Board Online • Albany Update • April 28, 2008

By Diane S. Ward
Governmental Relations Representative

The state Legislature has supported NYSSBA’s position that districts should be exempted from the Contract for Excellence (C4E) program provisions if their schools improve.

The Legislature also revised the C4E criteria so that a district won’t be required to sign a contract with the state unless it has a school that has failed to meet performance targets under the federal No Child Left Behind Act for at least two years.