Federal Advocacy Webinar
Mark your calendars for Wednesday, July 30th at 12:00pm for an exclusive look at how federal legislation could impact your district’s funding. During this virtual webinar, NYSSBA and NSBA staff will review the federal reconciliation bill and appropriations process, and will prepare you to advocate for sustained federal funding for public schools in New York State.
Join Caroline Bobick, NYSSBA’s Deputy Director of Governmental and External Relations, along with Jason Amos, NSBA’s Senior Director of Communications and federal advocacy lead, as they answer your questions and provide you with the need-to-know information for your federal advocacy. Registration will open in the next few days.
Resolutions Submission Deadline
Our 2025 Resolutions deadline is tomorrow! Proposed resolutions and bylaw amendments must be received by this Friday, July 18th at 5:00pm in order to be eligible for consideration during our annual business meeting this fall. Our Resolutions Kit contains results of the resolutions survey from the spring and detailed instructions on the resolution submission process for 2025. You can find it here.
For those new to the resolutions process, we have crafted an FAQ Video to answer several questions you may have. We hope you find it informative. You can view it here.
If you are interested in submitting a resolution, we encourage you to review our current position statements, found here, to verify we do not have an active position that fulfills what you are looking to submit. All 2020 positions will be sunsetting and must be resubmitted for a vote at the Annual Business Meeting if they are to remain as official NYSSBA positions. Questions that received at least a 2/3 ‘support’ or ‘oppose’ response in the resolutions survey will likely be submitted by the NYSSBA Board of Directors on behalf of the membership, but can also be submitted by a member board.
Distraction-Free School Funding Information Released
Late Friday afternoon, the State Education Department posted funding information related to the new distraction-free schools law. Details include district-specific allocations, allowable use of funds and application requirements. Allocations calculate to be $10.90 per student in grades 7-12, based on 2023-24 enrollment data.
The 2025-26 state budget included $13.5 million for public schools, BOCES and charter schools to help implement their plans. The funding was subject to a plan determined by the state Division of Budget. In late June, NYSSBA joined the state council of school superintendents (NYSCOSS) and the state association of school business officials (ASBO-NY) in issuing a letter to the Governor urging the state to swiftly release funding details, recognizing the quickly-approaching August 1 deadline for school districts and BOCES to post their new internet-enabled device prohibition policies on their respective websites.
Both the new policy and funding application must be submitted by August 1 in order to be eligible for funding. The State Education Department posting indicates that funds will be issued by August 29 to eligible entities who submit the required materials by the August 1 deadline.