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Nearly 2,500 school board members and administrators will be in Lake Placid next week to address such topics as opioid abuse, teacher shortages, student civil rights, mental health, testing and other issues facing New York schools.

The discussions will take place at the New York State School Boards Association's Annual Convention & Education Expo on October 12-14 at the Lake Placid Conference Center. This will be NYSSBA's first convention in Lake Placid.

Albany, NY – As part of the 6^th annual "Be the Change for Kids" Innovation Awards presented by the New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA) and SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly), three school districts from different New York State regions have each been selected to receive $5,000 prizes. The goal of the award is to honor and promote new educational approaches to science, technology, engineering, and math-related (STEM) programs in public schools.

As students return to the classroom, local school boards are preparing to deal with new initiatives, including issues dealing with equity and hate, mental health regulations, shortages of qualified instructional staff, and new science standards.

"These are issues in all school districts – upstate and downstate, wealthy and poor, big and small, relatively homogenous or very diverse. School boards must be prepared to address these issues in the coming year," said NYSSBA Executive Director Timothy G. Kremer.

New state science standards require instruction in climate change, but what students are taught about the topic may hinge on the political views of their teacher. 

That's one of the findings of a new report from the New York State School Boards Association examining research into climate change education. The report, "When Politics Enters the Classroom: Teaching about Climate Change," explores the intersection of money, politics and ideology with science in our nation's classrooms. 

"When it comes to teaching about climate change, it certainly appears that politics and economics, not science, are driving the debate," said NYSSBA Executive Director Timothy G. Kremer.

Richard Engelbrecht of the Madison-Oneida BOCES Board of Education has been named the 2017 Everett. R. Dyer Award winner by the New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA).

The Dyer Award is given annually for distinguished school board service to a current or former school board member, who, in the judgment of the NYSSBA Awards Committee, should be recognized for outstanding contributions to public education and children in his or her own school district.

Schools function best under steady, consistent leadership. State lawmakers acted just in time to renew mayoral control and ensure continuity in leadership as the New York City school system prepares for the upcoming 2017-18 school year. We thank Governor Cuomo and the state Legislature for completing this unfinished business and averting a disruption to the city school system.

We expect lawmakers will return to Albany at some point to address outstanding issues – most notably extending mayoral control of New York City schools – and correct what can best be characterized as an incomplete end to the legislative session. 

While we are grateful for the passage of much-needed technical adjustments to the tax cap, the major education issue of this session, mayoral control, hangs in limbo. The use of the mayoral control school governance model in New York City is preferred by nearly all interested parties. Therefore, it makes sense to separate this issue from other issues not so widely supported, and approve an extension immediately while the law's expiration deadline of June 30 is looming. Other issues can and should be taken up by the legislature at a later date. 

We urge the Legislature to resolve this unfinished business as soon as possible.

1. How is a school board member removed from office?
   A board member may be removed from office either by the commissioner of education or the school board. A school board’s authority to remove one of its members from office is separate and distinct from the commissioner’s authority to remove a board member. A school board member removed from office may not be appointed or elected to any district office for one year from the date of his or her removal.

Despite numerous warnings of widespread teacher shortages, a new report from the New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA) finds teacher shortages in New York are generally confined to a handful of subjects and geographic regions.

"What we found was that teacher shortages in New York exist largely in such hard-to-staff subjects as science, math, special education, English as a second language, bilingual education, foreign languages and technology," said NYSSBA Executive Director Timothy G. Kremer. "We also found that shortages aren't necessarily widespread across the state, but are found mostly in New York City and in smaller, more rural locales.