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Susan Bergtraum This month, school board members got a glimpse of how New York's troublesome receivership law, which was put in place as part of the state's Education Transformation Act of 2015, might play out in our schools - and from the research so far, it will not play out well. The insight came in the form of NYSSBA's most recent research report, entitled State takeover of public schools: Lessons from the school of hard knocks. The report examines the experiences of state takeovers of public schools in Massachusetts and Tennessee. |
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| On Board Online • June 13, 2016 By Cathy Woodruff The Board of Regents is expected to consider widening the path to a high school diploma for some students with disabilities at its June meeting, when the board also is scheduled to finalize previously approved adjustments to graduation requirements for all students. Pushing for the move is Regent Roger Tilles of Long Island. He says more students with disabilities should have more options for earning a meaningful graduation credential if they pass all of their Regents-level courses, even if they do not pass all of the Regents exams associated with the courses. |
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| On Board Online • June 13, 2016 By Cathy Woodruff During a single-district lobby day coordinated by NYSSBA, school leaders from a small rural district in Delaware County recently met with lawmakers about a state law that classifies bomb threats - but not mass-shooting threats - as felonies. For school officials from the Walton school district, the issue hits home. |
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| On Board Online • June 13, 2016 By Gayle Simidian You catch more flies with honey than vinegar - or so goes the old proverb. A new NYSSBA report finds the same applies to what kind of leadership seems most promising when state governments take control of school districts. Although state laws give broad powers to individuals charged with turning around low-performing public schools, a NYSSBA review of takeovers in two states suggests that collaboration works much better than unilateral decision-making. |
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| On Board Online • June 13, 2016 By Jason Franchuk Ian Byrnes could have an extra hour of sleep if he attended the high school closest to his home in Albany County. Instead, he gladly wakes up at 5:30 each morning for a 75-minute bus ride. The 14-year-old attends a full-day program at the Southern Adirondack Education Center in Hudson Falls. Most of the 24 students are beyond the traditional age of freshmen, as many fell behind due to attendance issues. Some have disciplinary records. Most are boys. |
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| On Board Online • June 13, 2016 By Elizabeth Wright "My friends think I'm insane," says Samantha "Sami" Holmes, a junior at Burnt Hills High School. This year, she has been the only girl enrolled in the morning Heavy Equipment class at the F. Donald Myers Education Center in Saratoga Springs. The other 39 students are all boys in the Heavy Equipment class run by Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES. "At first, I was a little worried about being the only girl in class, but I got used to it," she said. "They're all nice." |
| On Board Online • June 13, 2016 By Eric D. Randall After an article in On Board highlighted legal concerns involving school visits by Child Protective Services (CPS), a state agency has issued emergency regulations that school attorneys say will protect districts from lawsuits alleging violations of families' privacy rights. The regulation requires schools to give CPS access to "any child named as victim in a report of suspected abuse or maltreatment" as well as "any sibling or other child residing in the same home as the named victim." |
| On Board Online • June 13, 2016 By Jessica Goldstein "Data breach!" Does that phrase conjure an image of hackers in a dark room, possibly in another country, infiltrating your computer network using advanced coding skills honed from years of nefarious activities? Or do you picture a disgruntled employee, surreptitiously copying files to be sold or made public? In reality, however, data breaches typically lack such drama. |
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On Board Online • June 13, 2016